One of the best things I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in, for the past few years, is the Raptor Monitoring program of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP.) With conservation efforts, raptors have been recovering in Colorado, and even the re-introduced Peregrine Falcons (PEFA) are gaining in numbers. Volunteers (like me) monitor the nesting area weekly in order to determine territory occupancy, and reproduction productivity.

Field Notes with iPad and iPhone

I’ve been visiting my assigned location for a few years now, and never cease to be amazed by how much I enjoy it. I think of each trip as “another beautiful day in paradise” and it certainly is. I get to watch the change of the seasons, from late winter when the birds return to the area, to deep into summer. The changes of spring are quite thrilling to experience, and each year I feel a little more connected to this place.

I’d barely seen peregrine falcons in the wild, but now I’ve watched the peregrines select their scrape site, mate, incubate their eggs and raise their chicks to fledglings. I’ve heard and seen the awesome PEFA stoops, watched territory disputes, seems PEFA consume their prey, and become party to a wide variety of behaviors. I’ve gone from barely knowing these birds, to feeling somewhat connected. I feel honored.

I carry a pack on each of my monitoring session, and in it I have a notepad and pen in order to record notes. I’ve never cracked open that pad. For some reason I began taking notes in my iPhone, in Apple’s Notepad app, and kept on doing so. It’s taken me a few years to finally get sufficiently frustrated with typing on that keyboard, entering (and re-entering due to typos) times, and spending too much time looking at the phone and not admiring/observing the birds.

I finally wrote this application in order to make taking timestamped field notes a lot easier. I’ve used it on the past few weeks of observations, and it allows me to both record more and observe more. More time watching the PEFA is a good thing.

WildObs Naturalist 2.0 and WildObs Lookout 2.0 are available in the iTunes App Store.

Both these WildObs products now contain the functionality of WildObs Observer (to record any encounter along with time/location/photograph) but also provide their own features on top. This allows you to pick the WildObs application that is right for you, and stick with that one application.

WildObs Naturalist also let’s you :

• Browse all your records, recent and most viewed, and view your species – favorites, wishlist, and life-list
• Find new wildlife locations around your location, based off other observer’s encounters.
• Find new wildlife species around your location, based off other observer’s encounters.
• Map your recent/local wildlife encounters.

Use your encounters to find nature...

WildObs Lookout also let’s you:

• Browse recent/local wildlife encounters
• Browse recent/local wildlife encounters for species from your favorites/wishlist
• View what your network of observers are seeing.
• Checkout the wildlife at nearby willdife spots (based off other observer’s encounters.)

See what others have seen...

WildObs Observer 2.0 is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod, see here: http://wildobs.com/about/observer

WildObs Observer let’s you record your wildlife encounters (on or offline in the woods), but also let’s you :

• Browse all your records
• See what species are around your location, based off other observer’s encounters.
• Lookup a species by name (partial or scientific.)
• Browse (and comment upon) recent and featured wildlife encounters.

One thing I really enjoy, is that featured encounters are viewable on the home page. Check this and others out …

Use WildObs Lookout to find your nature:

• Find nearby encounter from the WildObs community (including for your favorite and wish-list species.)
• Find nearby wildlife places (National Parks, State Parks, and more.)
• Browse encounters from the WildObs community.

The latest WildObs Lookout is in the App Store:

Find your nature with WildObs Lookout

Find Nearby Encounters:

Find nearby nature with WildObs Lookout

View an Encounter:

Find your nature with WildObs Lookout

Show the Species:

Find your nature with WildObs Lookout

Map the Encounter:

Find your nature with WildObs Lookout

WildObsMobile for iPhone allows wildlife enthusiasts to enjoy the WildObs community; access featured, popular and recent encounters as well as look-up species.

Unlike WildObs Observer, which is  designed as an offline tool for field work, WildObs Mobile is an online tool for interacting with the WildObs Community. WildObsMobile utilizes minimal device storage.

Check out this free wildlife iphone application — and allow WildObs to help you find your nature:

WildObs Mobile 1.0 for iPhone

View the wildlife that other observers are seeing around you. Knowing what to look for is half the challenge, and anticipation is much of the fun:

Want access to your wildlife encounters when you are out an about? Want to know what you saw the last time you visited this park, beach, or location? Want to know what others have been seeing that isn’t on your life-list? If so, then WildObs Naturalist (the latest member of the WildObs family of wildlife applications) is for you.

WildObs Naturalist ... find your nature

View your recent, local and popular encounters (or encounters by tag):

WildObs Naturalist: Your encounters

Review your wildlife life-list:

Check your species life-list

See what others have seen close to where you are that is not on your life-list, then find out where to find those species locally:

WildObs Naturalist - Local species not on your Lifelist

WildObs Lookout is the latest iphone application to join the WildObs family of wildlife iphone applications. Lookout allows you to find nature around you (to “keep a lookout”) and get some ideas of what wildlife you could experience. Let crowd-sourcing help you get away from the crowds and experiencing nature…

Are you visiting a park for the first time, are you looking for something new around you? Do you have an itch to experience something new? Let the many amazing wildlife observers in the wildobs community lead you to nature. See what others are seeing, and tune in to the wildlife around you:

• Lookout is location based, it shows you encounters around where you are.
• Dive into each encounter:
  • Map the encounters, include your current location, launch Google maps for driving directions.
  • Expand photographs for greater detail.
  • Explore the species (locally, on wildobs and on the Internet w/ NWF.org and Wikipedia.)
  • Find more local encounters for the species.
• Browse community encounters:
  • Recent encounters from the wildobs time-line.
  • Features encounters (great stories, images or otherwise special critters/encounters.)
  • Popular encounters (voted on by the WildObs community.)

• View encounters for species from your “favorite species” list.
• View encounters for species from your “wish-list species” list.
• Comment on observer encounters within the community.

WildObs Lookout 1.0

Find your nature…

Lookout for nature...

Dig into each encounter:

View the encounter

Map any set of encounters (local or wide spread):

Map wildlife encounters

In version 1.1 of WildObs Lookup (and note, only WildObs 1.0 is in the App Store at time of writing)

Map the closest encounters for this species

That will provide a map of the closest encounter reports for that species in the WildObs database.

Map of closest encounters for a species

Lookup wildlife species.

Perhaps you are on a road trip out west and want to know if you are seeing a Wolf or a Coyote, a Moose or an Elk, a Goat or a Sheep. Or, conversely you are east of the Rocky Mountains coast and want to know what that glorious red bird is when the locals tell you it is a Cardinal?

Cannot quite remember the name of that bird, but know it is some ‘hummer’ thing, or some ‘blue’ thing? Or, you just want to be able to reference species on demand.

WildObs Lookup make these species and many more available to you on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Perform a lookup of a full or partial name to get a list of all WildObs species that match, including any WildObs known aliases (e.g. cougar for mountain lion.)

See Also

WildObs Lookup also tells you a list of “see also” species, if you lookup a Wolf it’ll suggest you “see also” a Coyote.

Observer Photographs

WildObs Lookup also allows you to view WildObs observer images (perhaps your own, or from others) for the species allowing you to get a variety of different samples to make a more positive identification.

Available in the iPhone App Store

WildObs Lookup is available in the iPhone App Store.