This week’s blog challenge prompt is to write a review. Haven’t really bought anything recently that I want to write home about, but I can tell you about 4 apps I have on my phone that I really like.

MERLIN is a very cool app if you have a yard full of yammering birds and you don’t know a starling from a woodpecker. I can sit out on the porch swing and turn on “Sound ID” and let the app collect data and then it spits out the most likely matches. Because of Merlin, I discovered that what Jon and I always thought was owls hooting away down by the river is actually barn swallows. I still love the sound, and I still love owls, but I find the barn swallow’s cooing quite peaceful.

FLIGHT AWARE is a great way to keep track of where my loved ones are in their journeys. I can look up flights and see when planes arrive and depart airports, and I can see if planes are delayed or ahead of schedule. I can use the generic view or a satellite view to watch as the plane icon circles, lands, and taxis. When my daughter was having a near-death experience trying to get back home from Paris last year, I can’t tell you the relief I felt when she got back to American soil in Boston and then returned to Kansas the next day so we could get her the medical treatment she needed.

PL@NTNET is very handy for those of us who are green thumb challenged. I know probably 5 plants that I can confidently name, and maybe 5 more (that’s pushing it) that I can take a guess at. So when a person is really into creating entire messages with carefully chosen bouquets, I can zoom in on each flower and put it in this app and find out what the heck it is so I can then go see what the meaning is behind it. If one of my kids is walking around outside and asks “Is this poisonous?”, I can snap a picture and look it up and tell them if it is safe to proceed or if we need to pack it up and go to the ER. If you have a child who is deathly allergic to poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac but can’t reliably identify them, this is a must-have.

SKYMAP is a fun little app that lets you aim your phone at the sky and tells you what constellations and planets are visible in that direction. It can be a little wonky and not always give reliable information, but it is still cool to kinda get in the ballpark of what you are seeing light up the night sky.