For Frankie Adkins, vacations usually offer a rare chance to disconnect from her smartphone. But on a trip to the Scilly Isles off England’s southwest coast, she did the opposite… She downloaded a series of nature apps to help her appreciate her surroundings more.
Vacations are one of the only times my phone gets silenced. My out-of-office goes on, my notifications are muted, and sometimes, if in full digital detox mode, my devices are stashed in a drawer or the glove compartment of my car.
But on a recent holiday, I did a tech pivot. I spent a weekend waving my phone at the sky, using apps to tune into the wilds of Britain’s Scilly Isles. Flung nearly 30 miles off the country’s southwest coast, the small archipelago is sometimes referred to as the ‘UK’s Galapagos’, thanks to its isolated location and unique microclimate. Scilly rides the warm Gulf Stream, and without frost or heavy rainfall, it’s an Eden for flora and fauna not found on the mainland.
“Each island has a small microclimate and quirks in their ecosystems,” says Jilly Halliday, one of Tresco’s resident beekeepers. “Tresco has an evolved microclimate with historic imports of species and accidental stowaways like the adorable stick insects from New Zealand. We can see the effect of human impact on the mainland in comparison to how beautiful and unspoilt our islands are.”
For me, Tresco and in particular, Tresco Abbey Garden, was a perfect playground to scan subtropical plants, identify unfamiliar birdsong, map cloudless constellations—and to settle a debate: Would apps enhance or dull my enjoyment of the natural world?
I’m what you might call a nature late bloomer. Growing up in London, my childhood wasn’t spent hunting for the slimmest stone to skim, camping under a star-studded sky, or rummaging in hedgerows. Our playground was concrete and our skylines crowded. Instead, my outdoor education happened as an adult, through reading, taking guided trips, or learning the ropes from resourceful friends who’ve taught me to tie knots and not get poisoned.
However, wildlife tours can be expensive, seasonal and sometimes tricky to access, be that for reasons of disability, mobility or income. So, for amateurs like me, having an AI-trained naturalist in your pocket, with an encyclopedic answer for every passing question, is an easy alternative. It would be interesting to see how AI—which is often criticized for lacking creative ability, reducing employment and not having limited emotional range—could measure up to a human’s wisdom.
In a world where we gamify everything, from dating, to running or learning a new language, nature apps can be a fun, addictive way of clocking up natural experiences.
We know that immersion in nature can lift mental health. Being outside is a way of quelling anxious thoughts, moving your body, and remembering that the world is full of wonders. In 2024, a US study into the benefits of birdwatching on college students found the practice can reduce psychological distress and boost mental well-being, even more so than nature walks.
Yet, a growing body of research indicates that excessive phone use often results in higher rates of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and loneliness. So, can using nature apps while appreciating the outdoors provide a middle ground?
Many apps are created by communities of conservationists, such as Picture This or iNaturalist. Just snap a photo of a blossom or bud with your camera and you’ll instantly find out the plant’s botanical name, country of origin, lifespan, and instructions for care. You can save it to your virtual garden, almost like the Pokémon Go of plants.
Just as addictive is Merlin Bird ID, the Shazam for birdsong. The free app, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, records birdsong, and identifies species in real time. Again, this can be saved to your bird list, which appeals to both hardcore twitchers and amateur birders. In a world where we gamify everything, from dating, to running or learning a new language, nature apps can be a fun, addictive way of clocking up natural experiences.
That’s what I found while exploring the Isles of Scilly’s five inhabited islands, with Tresco one of the most appealing for nature enthusiasts. The island’s patchwork of sand dunes, scrub, wetland and beaches is tightly managed by a private estate, and, with a community of around 150 permanent residents and a ban on cars, it’s a refuge for native and non-native species.
The jewel in Tresco’s crown is Abbey Garden, a sub-tropical botanical collection of thousands of exotic plants from over 80 countries. Within the garden’s walls, red squirrels hug the paths scouting for pine cones while a few golden pheasants strut the grounds, their crested heads raised like pharaohs. My virtual garden quickly bursts with everything from the scrubby crimson flowers of pōhutukawa (New Zealand Christmas trees), to the waxy rosettes of Aeoniums (Canary Islands houseleeks).
“The garden spans five Mediterranean climate zones, of areas between 30-35 degrees Celsius in both hemispheres,” Tresco’s head gardener, Andrew Lawson, tells me. With a sweep of the hand, he shows me how the garden ripples from Chile to Argentina, and South Africa to Western Australia, Queensland, and Norfolk Island, a tiny Australian isle in the South Pacific Ocean.
Lawson occasionally uses Google Lens, an image recognition technology, which he says can come in handy for visitors when plant descriptors are missing or guided tours are unavailable. The gardens attract visitors from around the world, who may recognize a tree from their travels but may not be able to place it, whether it’s monkey puzzle from the rugged peaks of New Caledonia, or a sunflower bush from a Mexican cloud forest.
Unfortunately, nature apps are no match for horticulturalists such as Lawson, who has spent nearly 40 years cultivating knowledge about the gardens. My plant app has a couple of false starts, which Lawson is quick to clear up for me.
The more Lawson talks, the more storied the gardens become—it’s hard to believe a garden can be brought so intricately to life by a horticultural app. Lawson and his team cherry-pick plants from across the world, sharing each species’ backstory. As an example, a towering New Zealand Kauri tree was a gift from the Queen Mother in 1995, while he points to a Nikau palm that he can intuitively tell is 28 years old.
“The reason I know that is because the rings on the trunk aren’t annual rings; they’re leaf scars,” he says. “It grows a foot in trunk a year and it’s 20 years before it gets a trunk—it’s eight feet high, so it’s 28 years old.”
Unfortunately, nature apps are no match for horticulturalists such as Lawson, who has spent nearly 40 years cultivating knowledge about the gardens. My plant app has a couple of false starts, which Lawson is quick to clear up for me. We scanned a gazania, which overwhelmed the app, as it failed to pinpoint the specific species of African daisy.
Likewise, for all of the bird identifier’s accuracy in capturing the calls of oystercatchers, herring gulls and goldfinch as they drift across the island, my app fails to identify the rarer creatures in the gardens. It struggles to pinpoint the preen of a Lady Ampherst’s pheasant roaming the grounds, which was one of seven pairs brought from China as a gift to Robert Dorrien-Smith, the gardens’ owner, from his children on his 70th birthday.
The stakes for my garden wander are low, but other adventures call for greater app accuracy.. For example, Shroomify identifies fungi, while All Trails curates digital hiking, biking and running routes, as a ‘companion to the outdoors’. Other nature apps are more holiday-specific such as My Nature Animal Tracks for safaris, or Seabook, a fish identifier tool.
By my last evening on Tresco, I’m in a routine of sitting on my balcony and straining my ears as the sun goes down. I listen to the dusk chorus as the light wanes and the birdcalls reach fever pitch, as the birds hurry about before darkness sets in.
And just as I go to press record, I find I already know it’s the chirp of a robin, a song thrush, and somewhere in the distance, the low hoot of an owl. The apps may not be a replacement for deep, intuitive knowledge, but for me, they bring a sense of closeness and curiosity that enhances my experience and knowledge of nature and the outdoors.
After a while, I notice the birdsong has ceased, a chill has crept in, and it’s time to move inside. But then I look up at the constellations webbing the night sky. Before I know it, I’ve downloaded SkyView. It’s time to get hooked on a new app.
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Frankie Adkins is a freelance writer who has recently moved from the UK's windy surf coast to sunny Sydney. She writes about oceans, nature and slower travel for a variety of international publications with bylines in The Guardian, BBC, Wired, The Independent, National Geographic and Condé Nast Traveller.
