Springtime is just around the corner and so is the warmer weather! Not only can you expect to find more people out enjoying nature in springtime, you can also expect to find more blooming plants and, unfortunately for some, more bugs.

Now I know that being outdoors is usually a time when you should be off your phone and away from the constantly looming black hole of information that is the internet, but your phone actually has uses outdoors too!

Have you ever been on a hike and seen a weird bug and thought, “What the heck is that?” Or maybe there was a really pretty flower that just randomly popped up in your yard one day and you wish you could know what it was?

Well, now you can!

Here’s a list of some of my favorite apps to supplement my outdoor adventures:

iNaturalist

iNaturalist is an app and a website that allows users to put up pictures of things they find in nature for the app to identify. The app is then able to look at your photo and give you a positive identification of what it is almost every single time. The app can I.D. just about every weird bug, quick critter, or perky plant you can take a picture of. Also, even if it doesn’t know the identification right away there are thousands of people on the app who can help you out. Just about every photo that I have put up on the app gets a response and I.D. within a day by another user if I am unsure of what it is. Plus, if you allow it to, your identifications and photos can also become what they call “research grade” which allows scientists and researchers on the app to use the data from your photo in their projects if they want. The only downside I’ve noticed so far about the app is that I personally think it is lacking a little bit when it comes to more complex plant data, which leads me to my next app.

Pl@ntNet (Plantnet)

This app is very similar to iNaturalist in terms of getting things identified through photos, but lacks some of the community-based system, and focuses solely on the identification of plants. Since this app focuses on quality photos as a key to identification, it also has useful tips on how to take photos of plants so that they can more easily be identified by the app. I also appreciate how this app lets you pick which part of the plant your picture is of (i.e flower, stem, leaf, etc.) so that it actually knows what part of your picture to look at, unlike iNaturalist. This is probably due to the fact that all of the identifications in this app come from the apps identification abilities and not from the feedback of other users. Therefore, my only qualms with this app are its lack of an ability to interact with other users and that, therefore, it makes it harder for an average person to identify things when it isn’t obvious right away from the app’s suggestions.

SkyView®

The final “outdoorsy” app that I love to use is called SkyView®. For me, one of my favorite parts of leaving a city environment for a woodsy environment is the fact that you can finally see a multitude of stars at night. But, honestly, how many of us actually know more than Orion’s belt and The Big and Little Dippers? There are billions of stars and almost 100 different constellations and, finally, there’s an app that will tell us all about them. SkyView® is an augmented reality app which uses your phone’s camera and location to tell you exactly what the stars you are looking at actually are, including graphics of the constellations, just by holding up your phone in that direction.

So, next time you’re planning a hike or outdoor adventure, give one of these apps a try; you might just learn something cool!