Category Archives: Nature apps

An Unexpected Encounter

One of my initial motivations for creating this blog was to encourage others (and myself) that exploring and appreciating nature doesn’t have to be a big production. You don’t have to climb a mountain, travel to a national park, or thru-hike the Appalachian Trail to experience the nature world (although all of those things would be amazing). It is simply about remembering to notice that bird outside your window, or maybe taking a second to appreciate those wildflowers while walking your dog.

With that thought in mind, I wanted to share my unexpected nature surprise from this evening. I went out to cut down a plant that had grown up between my deck boards (did I mention I hate yard work?), and as I pulled out one of the pieces, I met this little guy:

Now, I am no snail ID expert. I have no clue what species this is, and I don’t know anything about its natural history. I uploaded my photos to the iNaturalist app (a great tool for getting to know wildlife around you), so hopefully I’ll be able to learn more down the line. For today, it was enough to just spend a few minutes observing and enjoying an unexpected encounter.

Look closely to see the slime trail! A snail’s mucus allows it to travel on vertical surfaces or even upside down.

Did you have any fun nature moments today? Feel free to share what you saw or did in the comments. And if you happen to be a snail expert, please let me know what I found!

Getting to Know Your Neighbors, Part II

In my last post prior to taking some time off from the blog, I wrote about one way to get to know your wildlife neighbors in winter. Now, spring has sprung here in the Midwest, and since so many of us are finding ourselves at home more than we’re used to these days, I thought I’d kick off my blogging with another post about what I’ve been doing to learn about the creatures that share my backyard.

I am fortunate to have plenty of trees to scan for bird sightings

I have been taking advantage of the warmer weather to try to improve my backyard birding skills. I’ve struggled to get into birding as a hobby before, armed with my trusty binoculars and a field guide, but it can get overwhelming. This time, I’ve been taking advantage of two apps from Cornell University that have been game changers for me.

The first app is the BirdNET Android app, which analyzes bird sounds to identify the species (kind of like a Shazam for bird songs). While it isn’t 100% reliable, it is a great tool to start learning to identify calls, and is great for all the times that you can hear birds, but can’t spot them. This app is a newer find for me, and it has been so fun and helpful: I usually have a chorus of birds going in the trees behind my house, but can rarely spot anything. Even when I do, my amateur eye rarely has time to process what I’m seeing before the bird flies off again! I love that the app stores my submissions so that I can go back through all the birds I’ve heard and work on learning the calls. If you don’t have an Android device, you should also be able to upload audio recordings at https://birdnet.cornell.edu/ for identification.

The second app has been around for a while. The Merlin Bird ID app not only functions as a digital field guide, but allows you to identify birds by submitting a photo, or by answering questions in the Bird ID Wizard. It also allows you to simply look through bird species in your area, and provides natural history, photo galleries, and audio libraries. You can read more about this app here: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/. It is available on both Apple and Android devices.

In recent weeks, I was able to identify blue jays, cardinals, northern flickers, and a red-bellied woodpecker both through the BirdNET app and by visual ID. The BirdNET app also identified calls of Carolina wrens, white-breasted nuthatch, and American goldfinch.

If you try these out, let me know what birds you are seeing and hearing!