Now that they're being condensed into applications that run on handheld devices such as iPods and Droids, electronic field guides allow outdoors enthusiasts to quickly identify birds, flowers, trees, mammals and other objects of nature. With the birding app, for instance, a birdwatcher could call up a bird's image, find out where it normally lives, hear its songs and report its sighting to others.
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A flash of color in a nearby treetop sends the birdwatcher fumbling for his binoculars. He peers intently through them and searches his mental database for a name that matches what he sees.
Stumped, he whips a hand-sized device from his shirt pocket, turns it on, taps on its screen a few times and smiles. Better living through electronics! He finds a match for his mystery bird and adds another species to his "life list."
Birding in the far distant future? Hardly. Thousands of birders -- and a growing cadre of other outdoors enthusiasts -- are discovering that handheld electronics can significantly enhance their pastimes.
"It sure beats carrying a bunch of field guides and instruction books around," said Andrew Stewart, executive vice president of Green Mountain Digital, a Vermont-based company that writes and markets outdoors-oriented software for handheld electronics. "Now you can keep all that information stored in a device no bigger than an iPhone or an iPod Touch."
The electronics solve a long-time problem for nature enthusiasts -- how to identify birds and plants and animals in the field without weighing themselves down with printed field guides. Now they just purchase an "app" (short for application software), load it into the gizmo of their choice and have all the information in those field guides instantly at their fingertips.
"Judging by our initial sales, there's going to be a very nice market for this," said Stewart. "Since we put these apps on the market last October, we've sold several tens of thousands of them."
Stewart's company currently offers 24 apps, with 20 more to hit the market soon. He said the most popular so far has been the Audubon Field Guide to the Birds.
"Some of our other popular titles are the Audubon guides for wildflowers, trees and mammals. We're currently working on an 'Ultimate Series' of state-specific guides for everything -- birds, flowers, trees, mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians.
"And we're just about to come out with The Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing, an app that gives fly fishermen instant information about fly patterns, insect hatches and knot tying. It even includes casting lessons by Truel Myers, the head of the Orvis Fly Fishing School."
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A flash of color in a nearby treetop sends the birdwatcher fumbling for his binoculars. He peers intently through them and searches his mental database for a name that matches what he sees.
Stumped, he whips a hand-sized device from his shirt pocket, turns it on, taps on its screen a few times and smiles. Better living through electronics! He finds a match for his mystery bird and adds another species to his "life list."
Birding in the far distant future? Hardly. Thousands of birders -- and a growing cadre of other outdoors enthusiasts -- are discovering that handheld electronics can significantly enhance their pastimes.
"It sure beats carrying a bunch of field guides and instruction books around," said Andrew Stewart, executive vice president of Green Mountain Digital, a Vermont-based company that writes and markets outdoors-oriented software for handheld electronics. "Now you can keep all that information stored in a device no bigger than an iPhone or an iPod Touch."
The electronics solve a long-time problem for nature enthusiasts -- how to identify birds and plants and animals in the field without weighing themselves down with printed field guides. Now they just purchase an "app" (short for application software), load it into the gizmo of their choice and have all the information in those field guides instantly at their fingertips.
"Judging by our initial sales, there's going to be a very nice market for this," said Stewart. "Since we put these apps on the market last October, we've sold several tens of thousands of them."
Stewart's company currently offers 24 apps, with 20 more to hit the market soon. He said the most popular so far has been the Audubon Field Guide to the Birds.
"Some of our other popular titles are the Audubon guides for wildflowers, trees and mammals. We're currently working on an 'Ultimate Series' of state-specific guides for everything -- birds, flowers, trees, mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians.
"And we're just about to come out with The Orvis Guide to Fly Fishing, an app that gives fly fishermen instant information about fly patterns, insect hatches and knot tying. It even includes casting lessons by Truel Myers, the head of the Orvis Fly Fishing School."
By the end of 2010, Stewart expects to have 120 guidebooks converted to apps for iPhones, iPods and iPads as well as devices based on the Android operating system.
"The electronic platform allows us to do things that printed field guides can't," he said. "For instance, the bird guide allows you to hear audio files of more than 2,300 bird songs. The fly fishing guide will allow you to watch video casting lessons and to see knot-tying animations."
Stewart said the idea for the portable books came to him a few years ago, when he realized that technology soon would allow books to be read on handheld devices.
"When the iPhone came along, it was obvious that it would be the ideal platform for something like this. People are going to be carrying the device anyway, so why not pack a bunch of information into it? Electrons don't weigh very much."
Most of the current apps range in price from $9.99 for some of the less popular field guides to $19.99 for the bird guide and $24.99 for the fly fishing guide. Stewart said upgrades would be free.
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says there are 71 million people in the United States who actively watch wildlife. We think they'll eat these up," he added.
Reach John McCoy at johnmc...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1231.
