Recommended Nature Apps

Top Picks by Flat Rock Brook Naturalists

Animal Help Now
If you find an animal in need of help, Animal Help Now will help to connect you with the closest, most appropriate wildlife professional.
Download for iPhone or Android

Audubon Bird Guide *our favorite field guide for birds
Free field guide to over 800 species of North American birds by the National Audubon Society.
Download for iPhone or Android

BirdNET
The “Shazaam” app for bird calls. BirdNET is a prototype of a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Chemnitz University of Technology.
Available on Android only

eBird 
Part of a citizen science project, you record the birds you see in the field with this app and link your observations with eBird—a global online database of bird records used by hundreds of thousands of birders around the world.
Available on iPhone or Android

iNaturalist
Similar to eBird, iNaturalist helps you identify the plants and animals around you. Record your observations, share them with a community of over 400,000 scientists and naturalists.
Available on iPhone or Android

Merlin Bird ID
App by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that helps you identify birds by asking a few simple questions, or with a photo of a bird.
Available on iPhone or Android

NJ Invasives
This app helps you identify invasive species while you help NJ Invasive Species Strike Team stop it from spreading once it arrives in the Garden State.
Available on iPhone or Android

PlantSnap
Take a picture of any plant you find while out on the trail and PlantSnap will instantly identify it.
Available on iPhone or Android

Seek, by iNaturalist *our favorite app for kids
Identify all the plants and animals you find along the trail by scanning them with the Seek camera. This app uses the data from iNaturalist but does not require an account and has a kid-friendly interface.
Available on iPhone or Android

RaptorID
HawkWatch International & Cornell Lab of Ornithology teamed together to provide ID info on 34 raptors that commonly occur in North America.
Available on iPhone or Android