iNaturalist
iNaturalist is our main app. It's a free smartphone app, used by millions of people worldwide. It's a social media network for nature nerds, allowing us to share observations of any living organism we come across. The app uses AI to compare photos according to their location to other observations made nearby in order to suggest identification. You can also upload sound observations.
It's a great tool for organizing a BioBlitz! In the past, people organized BioBlitz events using pencils and paper; iNaturalist is the perfect platform for these events - one can easily create an iNaturalist project that will automatically accumulate all observations during the event, and allow participants to monitor their contribution in real time. Download the app, create a username and password, and go out! Don't forget to log in to iNaturalist on your home computer to check on identifications and comments on your observations, as well as other people's observations!
Merlin Bird ID
This is your personal pocket birder! Have you ever wondered which bird is singing that beautiful song? Some birders are experts in identifying birds songs around them. Now you can use AI to do the same thing. Wherever you go, turn the app on, and it will identify all bird songs around you! It's a great way to learn how to ID bird songs, or simply ID the birds around you. It is often helpful in spotting birds as well, as knowing which birds are found around you makes spotting them much easier!
Halide
This is a photography app that is highly useful for macro photography. It will allow you to control different camera parameters, and most importantly manual focus. When you photograph insects it's often difficult for the camera to focus on the insect in an area with many other potential subjects (such as leaves, rocks, etc). Please note, for documentation - the app adds slightly zoomed-out coordinates to your photos, so you might want to find another way to record location.
GPX Tracker
A free app to record your track. Other than creating a cool map of your route, this is useful for 2 things - you can geotag your regular camera photos in case it doesn't have an internal GPS. You can find out how in this great guide by Eve Mendelson. The 2nd thing is a by-product - while the app is running in the background, your phone might record more accurate coordinates all together - on your regular camera app.
There are many apps that provide this service. This one is great as it won't drain your battery much.
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