New on SciRouter

What's alive near you, right now?

Recent bird, mammal, frog, and insect observations within 25 km — pulled from 2+ million naturalists around the world.

For birders, naturalists, gardeners, and the curious.

Try it — no signup

Near New York City

Sign up free to save spots and track what's active through the seasons.

Save this spot — free →

What people are using it for

Backyard birders. Farmers tracking pollinators. Hikers scouting a new trail. Researchers checking a site.

What birds are around?

See the species observed near you in the past 30 days, ranked by recency. Migration chaser, yard birder, or casual noticer — same list.

Track the mammals

Deer, foxes, coyotes, raccoons — who's been spotted where you are. Useful for naturalists, farmers, and backyard camera enthusiasts.

Frogs, salamanders, turtles

Amphibians and reptiles near you. Great for a vernal-pool outing or a pond survey — know what to listen and look for before you go.

Pollinators and pests

Recent bee, butterfly, and insect sightings. For gardeners and farmers: see when monarchs arrive, when aphid outbreaks start, when bees are flying.

Scout a new spot

Planning a hike, paddle, or camping trip? Drop the coordinates and see what's been recorded there recently. Fewer surprises.

Track a place through the seasons

Save a spot, come back each month, see how species composition shifts. (Audio ID of what you actually heard is the next step — coming soon.)

How it works

1

Drop a pin

Your phone's location works. Or type a city, or click one of the suggested spots.

2

Pick what to look for

Birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects — one at a time. The filter is yours.

3

See what's active

Recent observations from the past 30 days, with species name, photo, and where they were spotted. Click any one for the full iNaturalist entry.

Where our answers come from

Community observations, named sources, honest about what's live vs what's coming.

iNaturalist

iNaturalist.org + community

A community of 2+ million naturalists worldwide. Every observation is human-verified (photos reviewed by other users, taxa curated by experts). CC-BY licensed for most observations.

Coming soon — audio ID

BirdNET + Perch (open weights)

Upload a recording, get the species — bird, frog, or cricket. We're evaluating BirdNET and Perch for the acoustic classifier.

Coming soon — eBird

Cornell Lab / eBird

Cornell Lab's global bird database. Higher-quality checklists, species-level range data, and the seasonal reference standard for birds.

Coming soon — GBIF

GBIF (open)

Global Biodiversity Information Facility — 2 billion+ occurrence records aggregated from museums, atlases, and citizen-science platforms. The deep archive.

Coming soon — Cornell Macaulay Library

Cornell Macaulay Library

The world's largest archive of animal sound recordings — 1.8M+ audio files. For when you want to compare what you heard against the reference recording.

Open science, community-verified

Community-first

We don't generate species identifications — we surface the ones real naturalists have already made. That's the honest baseline before we add ML.

Questions

Is this really free?

Yes. Free signup gives you 500 lookups/month. Public lookups from the landing page are rate-limited at 20/hour/IP to keep costs down.

Why not just use the iNaturalist app?

Use both. iNaturalist is great at letting you submit your own observation; we're optimized for the "what's around here" question, without asking you to create an account or learn a new UI first.

Can I upload a bird call?

Not yet. Acoustic species identification (BirdNET, Perch) is Sprint 5B. Today we surface the observations other naturalists have already made near you.

How recent is "recent"?

Past 30 days by default. You'll see the actual observation date on each card — a single outlier observation from 29 days ago can pop up even if nothing is currently active.

Works anywhere in the world?

Yes. iNaturalist's community is global — densest in North America and Europe, but any populated area typically has hundreds of recent observations.

What if I see something suspicious?

Observations are community-curated — most are correct, some are misidentified. Click through to the iNaturalist entry to see community consensus, or go to the Macaulay Library (coming) for reference recordings.

Your spot, every month, every season.

Free, no card. Save the spots you want to watch change through the year.