Testing of Mobile Apps and AI tools for Species Identification

The number of ID apps now available is absolutely astounding. And frankly, it's a bit overwhelming. I remember first hearing about apps that identified bird and plant species probably 8 years ago and initially thought the concept was very boundary pushing. AI's use on mobile phones was limited at this point. The technology wasn't quite developed enough to make for a seamless user experience. But that has changed considerably since then. Now, a simple search on the Apple App Store for "plant ID" returns pages and pages of different options. 

IMAGES BY GARRETT BIRD

A few weeks ago, a few environmental educators and I took a sea kayak trip to Maine with about 16 students. Many of the students already had species identifying apps on their phones. There were a couple students especially interested in birding and they all swore by Merlin Bird ID as the best option, so I decided to choose that app as the one I would test for accuracy. Luckily for me, this was all during a trip my wife and I were taking out to coastal British Columbia (which, by the way, is an incredible place). Here are some of the bird's we were able to hear: 

IMAGES BY GARRETT BIRD

It's incredible how quickly it can pick up each species. Watching the app record in live-time and seeing it register when each bird chips and then highliting that bird was fascinating. What a cool tool. It didn't hurt that we saw some pretty unique and hard to find birds. Even a bald eagle sighting!

I decided to also give plant ID apps a go too. To pick the one to test, I used the results of this YouTuber's trial of sixteen different options. The winner of his evaluation was PictureThis, which conveniently was actually the first one that popped up on my App Store search. 

IMAGES BY GARRETT BIRD

My test site was a coastal temperature rainforest on Vancouver Island. The forest was a haven for humongous douglas fir and red cedars, but my phone's lens couldn't quite focus well enough on the high-up needles. So I had to settle for some of the forest floor. I preferred the interface on this app over MerlinID. It is easy to navigate and the free version offers much more detail about the species. The "also known as" section was a personal fave, especially given that some of the Canadian names are different than our American ones. 

Overall, I'm very happy with both apps and will start incorporating them more into my outdoor adventures!