Birders living in and visiting New England are in luck as the region has been chosen to be the first to get its own Audubon Guide application for use with iPhone and iPod.

The application is based on the best-selling series of National Audubon Society field guides.

“I have lived in New England nearly all my life. I wish I could have had his wonderful app in my hand all those years,” said Andrew Stewart, publisher of Green Mountain Digital, the electronic publishing company that created the Audubon Guide app series in alliance with the National Audubon Society.

“Being outdoors with nature is always a joy, but being able to identify, hear, and learn about all of New England’s birds with this beautiful program makes it more fun than ever.”

From eagles to egrets, Audubon Birds New England covers more than 370 species of birds found in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Each species in the app is described with detailed information updated from National Audubon Society field guide books, including details such as appearance, habitat, behavior, diet, nesting, mating, migration, endangered status and more. All of this is accessed wirelessly and in real time through interactive and intuitive search features with parameters such as common and scientific names, family, shape, range, habitat, color, and size.

Additional features include hundreds of professional color photos, more than 1,000 bird sounds, and range maps for each species, and the geo-location search function allows users to find which bird species are located in any zip code, state or region. Advanced technical innovations include the ability to create personalized life lists, post GPS-enabled bird sighting lists, and upload user-created photo albums.