Digitally connected to nature

Like everyone else on the planet, I need a respite from the noise of the Internet. What if digital technology offered a path to tranquility? Would I be violating my commitment to digital minimalism? Not if it adds value to my life. 

Not everything about technology is necessarily negative. There can be positives too. The choice of useful digital tools for curbing anxiety is a great example. Two popular meditation apps, Happier and Stoa, are downloaded into my phone. Every morning they help quell my unhealthy rumination (usually at 4 a.m.) over a world that seems to have lost its moral compass.

Hanging out in Costa Rica with a family committed to conservation, though, it’s hard to ignore another anxiety buster staring me right in the face. 

Nature.

I don’t even have to move far from where I’m sitting on the balcony of our cabina. I’m totally surrounded by trees, birds, bugs, and other creepy-crawling things with whom I’m learning to co-exist.

Study after study have concluded that tech and nature can also co-exist. Digital imagery can open a door into the natural world and enhance the experience of it. With that in mind, I decided to take my first digital baby steps. I recently downloaded the Merlin app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As a start, it can help me identify the sounds of the birds I hear while I drink my morning coffee.  

Downloading a birding app is huge for me. I’m a committed SOB (spouse of birder). When Rodney starts rambling on to me about birds (do I really want to know their Latin names too?) I typically respond with a simple bite me.

But resistance is futile around here. Even my three-year-old granddaughter Lucy can identify birdsongs. If I don’t want to be left behind while everyone else tramps around Finca Cántaros in the mornings, I better get with the program.

My first experience with the Merlin app was typical for me (and probably for others too.) I couldn’t figure out how to use it. Luckily, I could turn to Lucy’s father. Besides being a top birding guide in Costa Rica, David is the regent biologist for Finca Cántaros Environmental Association. He patiently walked me through some introductory steps. 

I’ve since learned about eBird, another app from the Cornell Lab. It would also be useful. Users share their lists of bird observations from anywhere in the world. 

The number one nature app, iNaturalist, is not just for the birds. It helps users identify plants and animals too. It’s next on my list to download. I didn’t even know about it, to be honest, until I was told that Lucy could point out various mushrooms on the family’s early morning walks of Cántaros and insist her mother consult iNaturalist.

My newfound interest in these apps is motivated by more than just finding tranquility in nature. Rodney and I recently began making plans to visit Madagascar in October. It’s home to more endemic birds than anywhere else in the world. Google ‘endemic’ if this is all Greek to you (as it was for me.)

Along with birds, we’ll also be counting the number of lemurs we spot. They are Madagascar’s other claim to fame and apparently, there are more than 110 species of them.  

If that proposed trip isn’t enough for me to take a more active interest in the natural world, Lilly’s reaction to our travel plans sealed it. In so many words, my daughter informed me the trip would be wasted on me. She said it nicely, of course, and I completely understood. It was like the day last month when I caught a fabulous photo of an Ornate Hawk-Eagle. Real birders would kill for the image I accidently captured, she told me, from my balcony no less. 

Nice shot, eh?

For now, the burning question has to be this one: can a nature app make a nature lover out of me?  

Stay tuned.