It is no longer acceptable to point at every bird and say it's a heron. The city of Denver has a new app that will allow all of your friends to see through your lies.
The Denver Urban Birding Atlas is available for iOS and Android. It's both bug-free and useful, which is kind of a miracle for government-adjacent software. It's free, too.
The app contains a list of dozens of locally present species, from the American Avocet to the Yellow Warbler. Each one gets a descriptive page and photographs, and a list of all the parks and spots around town where you might see that species. You can also call up a list of all species present at a particular place, or call up a map of sites near you.
The software was developed by Squarei Technologies in Fort Collins. It cost $10,000, funded by a larger grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In terms of the software, I'm impressed! My one request would be a seasonal filter so I can see only birds that are hangin' around right now.
Anyway, one of my new goals in in life is to find the Cattle Egret and ask how it got so glam.
