[HN Gopher] Merlin Bird ID
___________________________________________________________________
Merlin Bird ID
Author : twitchard
Score : 548 points
Date : 2025-06-04 02:58 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (merlin.allaboutbirds.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (merlin.allaboutbirds.org)
| andsoitis wrote:
| Great app. One improvement I'd like is that if you play back
| sounds from the app you are allowed to cast the sound to an
| external speaker. I cannot.
| erickhill wrote:
| I wish when I uploaded a photo for analysis, and the app
| identifies my bird, that I could keep MY photo and not the
| generic one in their database. It's great at building a
| checklist, but not so much for making it feel like my own.
| pvg wrote:
| Have you considered the Vogelschublade method? https://i.insi
| der.com/638a7310b4290800185d0c43?width=1300&fo...
| ggerules wrote:
| If you use the companion app called ebird, you can save your
| checklists. Later you can upload your photos and any audio
| you have recorded. Those get vetted by regional bird experts
| and get added to the scientific data. It's fun to go back and
| relive past hikes and trips viewing your pictures on the
| ebird.org website!
| pgn674 wrote:
| On the Android app, tap the share button at the top of the
| recording play screen. This lets you export the audio WAV file.
| Select some other audio player app to share to, such as Podcast
| Addict, and use that app's Cast feature once it opens.
| glxxyz wrote:
| I wish the recordings could be edited, it would be nice to
| record for several minutes and just pull out the actual bird
| calls.
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| I was wondering what kind of bird was chirping outside my window
| this morning. I should have had this app.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| I don't know anything about birds but it seems to be very
| accurate for the ones that I can also visually compare.
|
| The only one I've seen it misidentify is a starling but
| apparently those are excellent mimics so I don't blame the app.
| gcr wrote:
| I'm friends with some of the researchers on the Sound ID portion
| of this app! The team's gone to great lengths to make sure the
| machine learning models and evals are solid.
|
| Under the hood, Sound ID is a great example of how "domain-
| expert-driven" careful research can give more reliable results
| than just feeding in data and hoping for the best.
| pgn674 wrote:
| I'm definitely impressed with the sound ID. One time there was
| a cacophony of birds singing outside my house at varying
| distances, and the app was able to identify 6 different bird
| species within 30 seconds. All 6 suggestions seemed reasonable
| to me.
| pfdietz wrote:
| We sometimes joke it's hallucinating when it detects
| something unexpected, but often it was being accurate. I saw
| my first ever male Blackburnian Warbler a couple weeks ago
| after Merlin picked it up.
| parpfish wrote:
| I'm really impressed about how well the sound ID works for
| birds doing mimicry.
|
| We had a brown thrasher stringing together a long series of
| mimicked calls that got labeled correctly as a brown
| thrasher.
|
| I don't even know how you'd approach the ML for that seeing
| how unique each song is to each bird
| kiddico wrote:
| Equally so I've had a red wing black bird mimic a cardinal
| and it appeared as a cardinal.
|
| The waveform was too thick and looked funky which is why I
| tracked down the bird doing it. (I Was at the Ohio bird
| sanctuary)
| Theodores wrote:
| I would like to see a version of the app that assigns names, as
| in 'Fred', 'Bertha', 'Kevin' to given birds, algorithmically. I
| get the same birds in my garden and I already know what species
| they are, but, I wouldn't mind knowing if my favourite birds
| have got new mates, or, if I am down the road, some way from
| home, to confirm that it is 'Kevin' that I see, as in the same
| 'Kevin' that frequents my bird bath.
|
| Consistently assigning names to different blackbirds might be
| tricky, but, for other birds, I am sure that some AI algorithm
| could do this.
| drcongo wrote:
| Pass them my thanks. I've been using the Sound ID on dog walks
| for a few years now and I love it. It's made me _much_ more
| interested in the birds around me now, and if it tags a new
| bird that I 've not come across before I'll often try to spot
| it. I think I'm a bird spotter now.
| xirdstl wrote:
| It is amazing, but it does often give false positives. That
| probably can't be avoided, though
| PeeMcGee wrote:
| I like how the app shows reference calls/songs for detected
| birds so I can verify using my own judgement, or to figure
| out which birds are which when there's a lot of chirping
| going on.
| j2h2 wrote:
| It does work pretty well. Great for non line-of-sight birding.
| rigrassm wrote:
| Someone near my house has a rooster that does his thing every
| morning. And every morning I look at the app hoping to see him
| pop up in the ID list but alas, it never IDs him.
|
| Please Let your friends know that roosters are birds too and
| deserve their recognition as the world's wake up call! Lol
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Merlin is magic. Love the app
| kiddico wrote:
| I'd love an API of some sort. I have some birdwatching/tracking
| ideas that require I can id a bird by sound and Merlin would be
| the best route if they just let people us it ...
| nemo wrote:
| For that you want to use BirdNet:
|
| https://birdnet.cornell.edu/api/
|
| https://birdnet.cornell.edu/
|
| Merlin is trained on the same source as BirdNet.
|
| You can also use the iNaturalist API for visual ids, for what
| it's worth.
|
| https://www.inaturalist.org
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| In general as a bird watcher i've been extremely impressed by
| this tech. I generally trust it.
|
| There's only a couple of times i've been sceptical of it's id and
| thats where there's similar species in the area. Eg. I'm not
| convinced there really is a purple finch where i live when all i
| see is house finches all day. But i could be wrong too! It's
| proven itself enough that i'm not ready to call it wrong on that
| one.
| roryirvine wrote:
| The only errors I've seen it make with common birds in the UK
| are also with finches - specifically with the greenfinch's "at
| rest" twitter, which it consistently mistakes for a goldfinch.
|
| The two are visually distinctive but, in Merlin's defence, I
| can't tell them apart by ear either!
| jcalx wrote:
| It definitely has trouble with similar species sometimes --
| I've noticed it recently with crows and warblers. But it does a
| great job generally and direct observation of the bird usually
| clears up the confusion.
| rigrassm wrote:
| I have a bunch of Blue Jays around my house and it turns out
| they are so good at imitating a specific hawk species(blanking
| on its name) that Merlin actually reports it as the hawk! I
| went and listened to real recordings of that hawks call and I
| couldn't tell it apart from the Jays imitation call.
|
| Now, I know it's technically possible it was a real id, but Im
| pretty sure the bald eagle it detected was actually one of the
| kids down the street running around screaming lol
| Jolter wrote:
| Surely your local blujays must have heard the hawk somewhere
| in order to learn its call? It figures that a hawk would
| occasionally show up in your neighborhood.
|
| Machine identification can still need some manual
| confirmation, even though this app does a really good job.
| It's not a confirmed sighting until you have a visual
| confirmation.
| rigrassm wrote:
| There definitely are hawks all around my area.
|
| In this case, while I couldn't see it directly while he was
| making the call, I had watched him fly to and land in a
| nearby tree before the call and then shortly after watched
| it take off. So I can't be 100% sure, but I'd be willing to
| bet that it was the Jay.
| Mossy9 wrote:
| I've been birdwatching (birding?) actively for a few years now,
| but only this year did I start using these sound identifiers.
| What a boon it's been! I've already spotted over a dozen new
| species by sound alone, and also learned to identify some of them
| by myself.
|
| It really has opened up a whole new venue of enjoying this hobby.
| At least here, machine learning/AI has a clear, positive impact.
| jedc wrote:
| I was visiting Yosemite a year-ish ago and a guide recommended
| this app and it was fantastic. My kids also loved getting the
| real-time info on what they were hearing, and trying to spot the
| various kinds of birds.
|
| Strongly recommend it (though admittedly, I don't use it often in
| suburbia)
| waetsch wrote:
| Love this app.
|
| I never thought I would ever actively watch for birds when I hear
| them. Or that I would be able to say "this is clearly a Wren". Or
| that I have a my favourite bird (Wren as well btw).
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I won Merlin once. I didn't know you could win the game, but I
| was relaxing in my backyard and suddenly it notified me that I
| had found the merlin. I was so excited. I hadn't known that a
| merlin was a kind of bird.
|
| I do wonder how accurate Merlin is. I certainly can't tell the
| bird calls apart, and I don't usually spot the bird in question,
| so it could just be lying to me half the time, and I'd probably
| never notice. But I sure do love the app as an amateur bird-
| liker.
| bryancoxwell wrote:
| Fellow amateur bird-liker here. Usually when you ID a bird
| it'll provide you with a boatload of other recordings you can
| compare against if you're unsure.
| pfdietz wrote:
| You can also use these recordings to annoy birds. Play their
| species' song and the bird will think there's a competitor
| nearby, and sometimes fly close to confront the interloper.
|
| Needless to say, don't do this too much, but it can be useful
| for getting a visual on certain birds (like warblers).
| temp0826 wrote:
| I love this app!! This and iSeek (plant/animal identification via
| photos) are a blast. Lived in the jungle in souteast Mexico the
| last couple years and I'm constantly reaching for these.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| We have a Mockingbird in our backyard (or more precisely, we live
| in his/her territory) that impersonates a Gila woodpecker. We
| were able to record it. Playing back the video and using Bird ID
| actually shows it as a Gila Woodpecker.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Oh, that's not my experience at all! I downloaded this app to
| see how many distinct songs a mockingbird was singing one time
| (it was a lot) and the app just came back: "Mockingbird". I was
| both amazed and disappointed!
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| I have a Blue Jay that began imitating a Cooper's Hawk after
| one started showing up in the neighborhood. In its early
| attempts at imitation, it was still recognized as a Blue Jay,
| but the Blue Jay has improved and it now comes up as a
| Cooper's Hawk! I watch it sing, so I know this is the Blue
| Jay, not the hawk.
| gs17 wrote:
| Same here, I was really surprised that it could see through
| the mimicry.
| hydroweaver87 wrote:
| iNaturalist is yet another nice app
| specproc wrote:
| Came here for this. My wife is a big Merlin fan, but I'm pretty
| hard of hearing and much more visually-orientated when it comes
| to the natural world. INat is a fantastic project, I've learned
| so much through it.
| hoseja wrote:
| And for birdsong there is specifically BirdNET, operating on a
| similar principle as this.
|
| I might check out Merlin specifically just for the ID wizard,
| for raptors which are pain to photograph and are best IDd by
| shilouette.
| I_dream_of_Geni wrote:
| Interesting to note that Merlin and BirdNET are both through
| Cornell Labs...
| pixelesque wrote:
| Note that the recent iOS update seems to have introduced a bug
| whereby even after stopping recording, the app in the background
| will continue to use SIGNIFICANT battery life, so I've needed to
| start force-closing the app after using it.
| justincormack wrote:
| It did that for me a while back but seems better now, I had
| hoped it was fixed...
| pixelesque wrote:
| I installed it for the first time four days ago after being
| told about it by a relative...
| WCSTombs wrote:
| I'm a little disappointed that the photo on the landing page
| isn't, you know, a merlin [1].
|
| [1] https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/merlin/id
| ainiriand wrote:
| I identified a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-whiskered_bulbul
| in our garden thanks to this amazing app! Me and my wife love
| birding and at the end of the year we compare our scores, it is
| playful entertainment. And we are introducing our daughter to it,
| it is so cute when she identifies one!
| podlp wrote:
| Merlin is far less capable in developing countries either because
| there's less available crowdsourced data, or it's intentionally
| suppressed to reduce its use by unskilled poachers
| michaelmior wrote:
| BirdNET-PI[0] may be of interest to this crowd. It uses a
| Raspberry Pi with a microphone to identify birds continuously
| based on their calls.
|
| [0] https://www.birdweather.com/birdnetpi
| foretop_yardarm wrote:
| In particular, it makes nocmig drastically more approachable.
| Be warned, though, that the false positive rate is extremely
| high (which is to be expected).
| sgarman wrote:
| I was thinking of trying to run this at home:
| https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go
| shellfishgene wrote:
| It's very nice, I prefer it to Birdnet-pi. It's been running
| very well for a few months now. It's cool to see the daily and
| seasonal changes in the detections.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| https://f-droid.org/packages/org.woheller69.whobird
| d0ugal wrote:
| I have been running this for about 1 year, works very well. The
| developer is regularly updating it and I run the nightly image
| at the moment.
| bobek wrote:
| Go for it. Running it for quite some time at home. Very easy to
| deploy, regular updates.
| bradly wrote:
| Highly recommend it. The kids and I have really playing with
| the data. https://birdymusic.com/
| camillomiller wrote:
| Used it a couple of nights ago to find out that here in Berlin we
| have a massive Nightingale population
| urban_winter wrote:
| Fantastic app. My wife and I are gradually becoming able to
| recognise more and more birds by their call. This is great
| because the human ear is better than the app at rejecting
| environmental noise - so we can spot birds by their call even
| close to a noisy road when the app cannot.
|
| The app, at least on my Pixel 6, struggles with very high
| frequency calls - e.g. long-tailed tits.
|
| My best spot yet? A nightingale in Wimbledon.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I find it great for familiar birds that only make certain calls
| when they are less visible and others out in the open. Let's
| you connect the variety of sounds throughout the day to
| specific species.
| speerer wrote:
| I feel like we share interests and location. The long-tailed
| tits in Wimbledon present no trouble for Merlin my Samsung
| phone, but I've never seen a nightingale round here.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| My best spot yet was also a nightingale in Spain. I imagine the
| UK is even better for bird spotting.
| eichin wrote:
| Of interest:
|
| > Sound ID is trained on audio recordings that are first
| converted to visual representations (spectrograms), then analyzed
| using computer vision tools similar to those that power Photo ID.
|
| Yeah, the spectrogram scrolling by at the top isn't _just_ a cute
| gimmick, that 's actually how the recognition works...
| EmilyHATFIELD wrote:
| most audio NNs work on spectrograms
| colinhb wrote:
| Neat.
|
| When working in a linguistics lab as an undergraduate long ago,
| we looked at spectrograms to identify sounds (specifically
| places of articulation) as much as listened to recordings.
|
| So it makes some sense to build a model on them rather than
| some other representation of the sound.
| JR1427 wrote:
| The spectrogram is actually also really handy for manual ID,
| and (at least for me) in remembering calls.
| rjim86 wrote:
| I recently found this app and I'm loving it. I actively use this
| when i go for walk, hike and camping. Thanks team for the amazing
| work
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| Me too. I was out hiking and ran into an old guy I know. He is
| 90 years old and he's a bird biologist and a naturalist by
| vocation. I changed my plans for the day and hiked with him for
| a few hours. He talked quite a bit about birds and ecology and
| it sparked my interest. I figured someone must've made an app
| to id bird calls, and I found Merlin in the Google store. Now
| I've been walking around trying to id every bird I hear. That
| was a few days ago, so seeing it here on HN is definitely a
| Baader-Meinhof moment.
| leland wrote:
| Wonderful app! Collecting birds is great fun and another fun use
| is to try and fool it by making my own bird noises and see if I
| can pass. Red-tailed hawk is my speciality. I can fool it [?]50%
| of the time once I'm warmed up.
| Arbortheus wrote:
| I've used this app for a while, it's really good and I'd highly
| recommend it if you want to learn more about the birds where you
| live in an accessible way.
| barrenko wrote:
| Beautiful functional website, I got hooked from that last
| woodpecker post that ended up on HN.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| It's great to see it works globally and not just in America
| neilsharma wrote:
| The Sound ID is amazing. Been using it for a few years now. I
| usually just keep it on while I'm hiking and it identifies over a
| dozen birds in 20-30min, nearly all of which I've eventually
| verified are in the area.
|
| The photo ID feature is okay, but I assume that's because the
| photos I take on my phone of far away birds is too pixelated.
|
| I actually want a similar ID feature frog species; i hear a lot
| of croaking
| physicsguy wrote:
| I love this app, it's incredibly good on the Sound ID stuff.
| There is a Wildlife Trust nature reserve near where I live and
| I've found it incredibly useful to work out what I'm
| hearing/looking at.
| 0points wrote:
| I really like this app, but last night I had an encounter in the
| dark with the most weird alien sounding bird, that uses so low
| frequencies that the app couldnt make anything out of it.
|
| I realize this is a fault of my phones mic and not the app, btw!
|
| I think the bird was one of the snipes (dvargbeckasin?) because I
| met them before.
| MrOrelliOReilly wrote:
| Did you actually see the bird? Some animals make sounds that
| are deceptively similar to birds (ex chipmunk chirps). Merlin
| won't recognize these as "not a bird"; it just doesn't
| recognize the sound at all.
|
| Usual disclaimer IANABL (I am not a bird lawyer)
| zabil wrote:
| Love this app, saw a guide using this app on an early morning
| birdsong walk--gave it a try and it's really good. Very accurate
| and super easy to use.
|
| I think a lot of serious bird enthusiasts use this in the UK.
| ololobus wrote:
| Love it. I do very occasional birdwatching, so I still don't know
| most of the birds I meet. What I like about Bird ID is that when
| I see in binoculars a singing bird I can quickly identify it,
| check photos, and really confirm that it's exactly that bird.
|
| I've heard from more experienced birdwatchers that it can false
| identify in some cases, so I always try to confirm visually, but
| anyway, for my casual use it's more than accurate enough.
| popol12 wrote:
| I recently discovered after years of using this app that it's
| possible to have the names of the birds in other languages than
| English, it's an option in the app settings.
| gokaygurcan wrote:
| Love this app. You don't have to be a professional birdwatcher
| (if that's a profession) to use it. Just open it, and start
| listening. It's really fun to see what kind of variety of birds
| around you.
| MHM5000 wrote:
| Amazing... I have the same idea for car sounds! You know, when
| different cars make random noise here and there, and you don't
| see what's wrong!
| lionkor wrote:
| That would need more metadata, the car sound app would need to
| know a lot of specifics about the car, so it's likely not as
| "easy"
| tomashubelbauer wrote:
| Good idea, let me know if you want me to contribute VW Caddy
| loose turbo whine. :D
| jiehong wrote:
| Great app!
|
| In my experience, it works pretty well in Europe, but so so in
| East Asia (doesn't know many birds there).
| mapleoin wrote:
| I would love for someone to make a birding/citizen scientist app
| that's well gamified. This is basically pokemon. You go places
| and find different creatures and collect them.
| sodimel wrote:
| I had the same idea a few years ago. Would be really great.
| have_faith wrote:
| iNaturalist is great for logging observations (their iNat Next
| app is their new one).
|
| They also have an app called Seek that I think is more aimed at
| kids, but it comes with trophies and streaks and stuff like
| that.
| yaky wrote:
| Seek is impressive just for the sheer number of completely
| different things it could identify, from mosses to animals. I
| used it to find native and invasive plants in my garden.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| [eBird](https://ebird.org/home) has exactly what you are
| looking for:
|
| - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ebird-by-cornell-lab-
| ornitho...
|
| -
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.cornell.bi...
|
| Even merlin does some of it:
|
| https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/download/
| uniq7 wrote:
| I would love to play that game, and the data could maybe be
| useful for researchers.
|
| On the other hand, people playing Pokemon GO trespassed private
| property and protected spaces, so I wonder how far would the
| players of this game go just to make a pic of a "legendary"
| animal at the border of extinction.
| zX41ZdbW wrote:
| For those interested in birdwatching, I also recommend checking
| a web app: https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Birds
|
| Explanation: https://clickhouse.com/blog/birds
| nkrisc wrote:
| Love this app. It's really made me realize how little bird
| diversity there is in the suburbs where I live.
|
| I opened it up in a natural research area once and it lit up with
| so many more species than I'd ever heard near my house.
| gadders wrote:
| I normally use BirdNet app for birdsong, and it looks like that
| is from Cornell as well. Does Merlin use the same tech under the
| covers?
| michaelhoney wrote:
| I don't believe so. Merlin is newer and uses a different
| architecture. BirdNet uses a CNN and its atomic sound units are
| 3 seconds long: Merlin can do real-time ID on continuous audio
| and I think uses a hybrid system.
| seereadhack wrote:
| I love this app and use it every few days. The Macaulay Library
| at Cornell, where this app is made/supported, has a short write
| up on the underlying tech here:
| https://www.macaulaylibrary.org/2021/06/22/behind-the-scenes...
| weinzierl wrote:
| I know there are many apps for plant identification but does
| anyone have a recommendation for a good one?
|
| (iSeek mentioned in another comment doesn't seem to be available
| on iOS where I live)
| bokkies wrote:
| Seek by inaturalist
| mplanchard wrote:
| Second this rec, it is very good, and will do a pretty nice
| job with mushrooms as well (although never trust it as a sole
| ID if you're foraging).
| shellfishgene wrote:
| Try Pl@antNet, https://plantnet.org/en/ Seek is nice as it's
| all on device and works offline, but I think Pl@ntNet is better
| for identification.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| It's worth being aware that the developer of the Android app
| asserts that "...this app doesn't share user data with other
| companies or organizations" but according to Exodus Privacy this
| is not true: https://reports.exodus-
| privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.labs.me...
| viraptor wrote:
| Exodus can only show what code is likely included, not what
| data is sent out. For example I'd classify a crash stacktrace
| without any extra information as not sharing user data. Exodus
| doesn't contradict the authors, but they could specify what the
| services are used for.
| bowsamic wrote:
| My wife and I learnt to do a bird call with our hands, the app
| actually identified it as a type of dove, we were very surprised
| alpineman wrote:
| Amazing technology. Sometimes I wish they would gamify this tech,
| or make it into a social activity. A kind of 'pokemon go' for
| birdwatching. It would be a great opportunity to get people more
| interested in nature and conservation.
| zeristor wrote:
| This has been great, it helped me ID an Osprey, I was where I
| didn't think they'd be.
|
| Its ID'd a Peregrine Falcon twice, I've still not seen it.
|
| It does list Red Kites as Common Buzzards, I am not sure how to
| provide feedback to update this.
|
| I tend to use Merlin, and Seek as I walk around Essex. Seek
| doesn't seem to know about Sessile Oaks.
| froglets wrote:
| I love this app, but after going back to review some of the rare
| birds I've noticed that many of my saved recordings have
| inexplicably disappeared.
|
| I do wish it could also identify other insects/animals. I
| originally got the app to identify whatever bird sounded like a
| squeaky door or wooden swing, and eventually saw that it was a
| squirrel.
| neoden wrote:
| This app is awesome. The only minor complaint I have is that it
| does not handle long recordings well. For example, I left my
| phone near the window for an hour to identify as many birds as
| possible and the recording cannot finalize properly due to
| (supposedly) huge size of the produced file.
| lewispollard wrote:
| WhoBird is much better for this, as it's realtime and processed
| on-device. It stores a log of each bird identified along with
| the percentage match, and can optionally store a clip of the
| audio that triggered the match.
| lnjoe wrote:
| Is WhoBird Android-only? Not finding it in the iPhone App
| Store?
| GRBurst wrote:
| yes, it is an android version of birdNET as stated on the
| github page https://github.com/woheller69/whoBIRD
| codingdave wrote:
| I love this app. I use it all the time.
|
| But I do have a complaint, that you can't upload an image via the
| web from your PC. For those of us who use a DSLR for our birding
| photos, the UX to have to transfer images to our phone to send
| them through the app is really painful.
|
| It isn't the end of the world. It just makes me ID my birds in
| other ways. But it would be nice to provide non-mobile UX
| options.
| genvmunix wrote:
| I also use a dslr for my bird pics. When it comes time to id
| the bird I take a picture of my monitor and feed that to the
| app. The app doesn't need my 48MP images to do the job. The
| screenshot is fine.
| codingdave wrote:
| Clever. I like it, and will definitely try that. Thanks!
| jononor wrote:
| The analog loophole copy/paste :D
| hassonofer wrote:
| I'm the author of the Birder framework (a computer vision
| toolkit for bird classification) -
| https://gitlab.com/birder/birder It's still in early alpha, but
| you might find it useful for your DSLR workflow.
|
| If you're interested in trying a web-based alternative, I have
| a demo space at https://huggingface.co/spaces/birder-
| project/birder-image-cl... where you can upload images directly
| from your browser. Fair warning though - it's primarily
| designed to showcase the models rather than provide any kind of
| user experience, so you'll need to manually select the
| appropriate regional model (look for suffixes like eu-common,
| arabian-peninsula, etc. based on where your photos were taken).
|
| The coverage is still very limited... More regions will follow
| in the coming months.
| tristor wrote:
| I do the same thing, but I only ID photos that I consider good
| enough to post, once posted they're accessible from my phone
| (Flickr, IG, et al) so it's no big deal to grab them and insert
| them into the app.
| yoko888 wrote:
| This is the first time I've heard of this kind of app, and it
| honestly sounds like a little piece of magic. You just hold up
| your phone, and it tells you which bird is singing nearby. There
| are often birds outside my window some I know, some I don't. I
| used to just wonder quietly, but now it feels like I might
| finally get some answers. Especially when I'm out in nature and
| see those beautiful birds with long tails it'd be great to
| finally know their names. Also, when my kid asks me "What bird is
| that?" I might finally have an actual answer instead of just
| guessing. I think I'll try it out one morning. Even recognizing
| just one new bird might make my whole walk feel different.
| j_bum wrote:
| I've used it for several years now, and can't recommend it
| enough. It does feel like magic :)
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| This app changed my life. I got into hiking and outdoor spaces
| when I married my wife and she wanted me to join her in
| camping, something I never did as a kid. This iteratively got
| me more into natural spaces and wildlife, but only as a passing
| curiosity.
|
| But then one morning while camping, I woke up to a symphony of
| birdsong. Many calls, but there were at least dozens of a call
| echoing throughout the forest of a flute-like bird with a trill
| at the end. I was enchanted. I had used the Merlin app
| previously just to ID some city birds near my house, but I
| remembered I had it and found that dozens of wood thrushes were
| singing their song to me that morning. It's my favorite sound
| in the world, I've got a tattoo on my arm of the spectrogram of
| their song, and I make it a point to camp where I expect them
| to sing every year.
|
| This created a journey into a love and personal involvement in
| the natural world that has changed me for the better.
| nbaugh1 wrote:
| Yeah I use it almost everyday. I've gotten to where I
| frequently recognize new birds. I don't talk about it much
| because I haven't fully come to terms with entering a bird
| watching phase of my life, but occasionally I'll say something
| like "Oh that Northern Flicker is back" and my wife will be
| totally confused. We live in Brooklyn near Prospect Park and
| have a backyard so we get a pretty wide range of birds.
| geoka9 wrote:
| I'm on the other side of the continent and a Northern Flicker
| is the loudest bird outside my window right now :)
|
| (Also identified with Merlin.)
| GRBurst wrote:
| Loving these kind of apps :-) I personally use WhoBird, which
| runs complete local on your android device, so it works also when
| you don't have internet and is available on fdroid
| (https://f-droid.org/packages/org.woheller69.whobird/). Will give
| merlin a shot as well to see how it compares
| GRBurst wrote:
| whoBird is only working with audio (and not photos) though
| mplanchard wrote:
| Merlin also works offline. I use it all the time out in the
| mountains.
| yaky wrote:
| AFAIK WhoBird uses the same model (or at least, also developed
| by Cornell), but for me, Merlin is still better at identifying
| multiple birds at once.
| cmilton wrote:
| Big fan of this app! It makes it so easy for the beginner bird
| watcher to immediately get results. Sound ID is mostly what I
| spend my time in.
|
| I do find myself wishing Sound ID would identify additional
| wildlife beyond birds. Anyone heard of such a project?
|
| Another app I enjoy is Seek by iNaturalist!
| robviren wrote:
| My 7 year old loves this app. He was running around the yard and
| going on walks with me like he was catching pokemon. He is not
| yet aware of Pokemon Go. I prefer he become a bird nerd in the
| short term if I can manage. Really cool stuff.
| togume wrote:
| It's so great this app is getting attention. Hopefully the
| devs/PMs come here and pay attention.
|
| The sound ID works very well, especially in the jungles/forests
| of Colombia with zero network availability.
|
| The rest of the app needs a lot of love, though. Buttons don't
| work often, screens are inconsistent, results get lost, and more
| issues.
|
| Features: I'd love an iNaturalist bridge. Going back into a
| previous recording shows "No matches" when the original capture
| did. Many times we're with groups in nature, and we ID something,
| but it's gone by the time we show it to someone.
|
| A quick starting point would be to add a quick feedback button vs
| opening a web form, so issues can be reported conveniently.
|
| And a resounding thank you to everyone making this app possible!
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| > Buttons don't work often, screens are inconsistent, results
| get lost, and more issues.
|
| What device are you using, out of curiosity? I use this app
| almost daily for months at a time across several generations of
| the Google Pixel, I haven't had _any_ of these issues even one
| time. I 'm not even sure what you mean by "we ID something, but
| it's gone by the time we show it to someone". Like, it shows a
| match while you're recording, but the ID disappears after
| you've stopped the recording?
|
| I've found the app starts hiccuping when I'm making a very long
| recording, but I've learned to just cut it off and start a new
| one after about 10 minutes.
| fullstop wrote:
| The only problem I had was when I had a OnePlus phone. It
| would show the little circles of "I found a bird" but not
| actually identify anything, and as far as I know it was a
| OnePlus specific bug. I have a Pixel now, and it works
| perfectly.
|
| When I was in Aruba there was no bird pack which covered the
| island, but the one for Venezuela seemed to work for most
| birds that I heard.
| jacurtis wrote:
| Going to second this opinion. I use this app almost daily as
| well on an iPhone 15 Pro. I have zero problems with
| responsiveness. I have seen a small lag when I start to get
| to 45m-1hr recordings, but even that isn't all too bad.
| drstewart wrote:
| > I've found the app starts hiccuping when I'm making a very
| long recording, but I've learned to just cut it off and start
| a new one after about 10 minutes.
|
| What phone are you using? I record ten hours a day and never
| get any issues whatsoever, so I'm not even sure what you mean
| by "hiccups".
| gs17 wrote:
| Not them, but I had it crash on a three hour recording.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Works very well on my iPhone as well.
| Balgair wrote:
| Love the app!
|
| But it crashes for me every 255 seconds after start-up on
| Android. Yes, I timed it.
|
| Is there a way to submit bug reports?
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| Android app store says merlinhelp@cornell.edu
|
| Definitely submit full OS and hardware details, and adb
| logcat crash logs if you can. There's a million possibilities
| of the cause of the problem, with all the different android
| hardware out there.
| busyant wrote:
| > The sound ID works very well, especially in the
| jungles/forests of Colombia with zero network availability.
|
| Interesting. I find that the sound ID works well if:
|
| - I have my phone _out_ of my pocket and exposed to the air
| (obviously, if the microphone is muffled, it may cause
| problems).
|
| - I'm not moving (my footsteps seem to interfere no matter how
| loud the bird is)
|
| - The Merlin App is running with "focus" (i.e., if Merlin sound
| ID is running in the background, it seems less likely to detect
| songs and calls). I don't know if this is really true or if I
| have a subconscious bias.
|
| - There are also weird effects where it will sometimes fail to
| notice really loud obvious birds nearby (e.g., baltimore
| orioles directly above me) but it will _nail_ a faint and
| distant song.
|
| It would also be nice if it could show the part of the sonogram
| that forms the basis of its ID call. It is especially difficult
| for me to examine a sonogram when there are multiple birds
| singing at once.
|
| > The rest of the app needs a lot of love, though. Buttons
| don't work often, screens are inconsistent, results get lost,
| and more issues.
|
| I have the opposite experience, but that may be a phone-
| specific issue??
|
| Nevertheless, it's a fantastic app.
| evereverever wrote:
| I tried adding a 2nd region when I was in Europe and it locked
| up. I had to reinstall the app to get it back to a usable
| state. Adding region packs is totally broken on iOS.
| JR1427 wrote:
| If you haven't tried birding, try it. You'll like it. It's like
| collecting Pokemon, but IRL.
| 100_cacao wrote:
| Using this one quite often :)
| tgtweak wrote:
| I've been using this for years - amazing while traveling.
|
| I wish they'd add some non-bird noises to it as a courtesy since
| there are often whips and calls that are non birds, like insects
| or mammals. I think it would add some depth and the overhead
| shouldn't be too high.
| japhyr wrote:
| To me, Merlin is the shining example of what "a computer in
| everyone's pocket" could have been. Such an amazing app that
| connects so many people more intimately with the world around
| them.
|
| I get occasional nudges to support their organization, but it's a
| clear and direct appeal, there are no dark patterns that I'm
| aware of.
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| iNaturalist is another gem. Hackers please support these apps
| so they don't turn into the AllTrails and Couchsurfing type
| rackets that we deserve.
| jcalx wrote:
| Merlin is run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, so it should
| (hopefully!) remain good and free, unlike apps by private
| companies with a profit motive.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| With all of the federal cuts to university funding I'm not
| sure this is a given.
| jgraham wrote:
| Yes! It's a rare example of an app that instead of trying to
| capture your attention into a virtual environment, helps you to
| direct it outwards into the real world.
|
| The sound id in particular is just an amazing way to really
| extend what's possible for most people, and provides an on-ramp
| for people to identify more birds by ear alone (and in general
| to pay more attention to sound when in nature).
|
| I might argue that Merlin -- and especially eBird -- lean a bit
| to heavily to the competitive "high scores" view of birding;
| given the impact of climate change on bird populations,
| encouraging people to travel the world and see as many species
| as possible is clearly problematic.
|
| But that's a minor quibble, and Merlin remains one of the few
| apps I'd unconditionally recommend to anyone with the faintest
| chance they'd use it.
| jfengel wrote:
| This XKCD is ten years old:
|
| https://xkcd.com/1425/
|
| It didn't take the full ten years, though Merlin has gone from
| "pretty good" to "amazing" in the last few.
| plastic3169 wrote:
| I love this. It used to work like magic but something happened
| and now it barely recognizes birds for me. Only if they are
| really close. Anyone else? Maybe my hardware is failing? I also
| travelled and loaded other packs and wonder if I messed up my DB.
| nlh wrote:
| Could be an issue with your mic (clogged? weak connection?). I
| just installed and used it and the app works perfectly for me
| and picks up birds that are calling faintly and in the
| distance.
| rigrassm wrote:
| I noticed it had a hard time when there was a consistent
| background noise going. If my home's AC is running, it can only
| ID the highest pitched birds and will fail to detect the lower
| pitched calls.
|
| I've actually started setting my AC to keep the temp a little
| higher in the early mornings so it doesn't run as much while
| I'm outside.
| yaky wrote:
| A few months ago, there was an update that made the detection
| much stricter. I believe this was in part to detract people
| from posting false positives of rare birds to eBird.
| wlaw15 wrote:
| My <2yo son started excitedly pointing out birds flying by a
| kitchen window at home so we placed a feeder on the glass and he
| loves when they eat while he's eating. Then I found this app to
| start to try and identify the different frequent diners together.
| Was amazed at how well it worked even through the screen on the
| window.
| francesca wrote:
| I love this app. I let it run in the background when I walk my
| dogs at home and when I'm traveling and it is amazing how well it
| connects me with the world around me.
| wapeoifjaweofji wrote:
| I really wish this existed for web as well. Why do I have to
| transfer photos to my phone in order to run ID on them?
| Aioren wrote:
| I've been using it for a few years now just to identify the local
| (Arizona) birds in my neighborhood. It was also fun to use it
| when I was in South Dakota last year. I've gotten most of my
| family interested in the same, just through use of the app
| jpiburn wrote:
| love this app
| PLenz wrote:
| My favorite part of the app is the spectrogram - I'm not sure
| exactly why but seeing the songs has made learning which bird
| goes with which song so much easier.
|
| Also a shout out here to Bird Song Hero:
| https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/bird-song-hero/
| redsparrow wrote:
| Berlin's Museum of Natural History (Museum fur Naturkunde Berlin)
| has a nice app for identifying plants and animals called
| Naturblick. It's available in English.
|
| https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/research/naturbli...
| loog5566 wrote:
| I really wish this existed for web as well.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| Birdnet let's you upload audio files to analyze, if that's what
| you mean. https://birdnet.cornell.edu/
| diabllicseagull wrote:
| I've been using Merlin (Pokemon GO for adults if you will) for a
| few months now. It's been pushing me to be outside more, explore,
| and be active in general. The social aspect is great too. I have
| friends who share when they come across a new one that we haven't
| seen in the area before. Kudos to the program.
|
| Also so not sorry to throw off the algorithm at a local aviary
| identifying birds from tropical parts of the world.
| adolph wrote:
| Its awesome to see the Cornell Lab of Ornithology continue its
| work in this way. I first heard of it through seeing mention of
| the "Haikubox" which is a self-contained BirdNet device. In
| looking it up I see that there is another commercial device and a
| DIY Raspberry based hardware. All are reviewed at the below link:
|
| https://becausebirds.com/bird-auto-id-showdown-comparing-bio...
| shellfishgene wrote:
| BirdNET-Go is nice, it runs on any linux box (raspi included)
| and can also analyze RTSP streams, so you can just connect any
| security camera audio you may already have outside.
| barefootcoder wrote:
| Be careful when playing the bird songs. A few days ago I clicked
| on the cardinal song that was in my identification list and the
| male cardinal nesting in my hedge went NUTS and I've not seen
| either of them since, and used to see them daily. They're very
| territorial.
|
| I'm afraid that I scared them away from an active nest by
| accident just playing around with the app. :(
| crawsome wrote:
| "Calling back" is a term I heard after getting into birding. I
| don't think they warn the user in the app enough about "Please
| don't use this to call to birds, only listen for your own
| reference".
|
| If I were a bird, and another mysterious bird sound came that
| was speaking a certain feeling or phrase I could understand,
| and I come to see it's a giant monkey man playing the sounds
| from himself, I would probably move my family, too.
|
| Yes, Cardinals are pretty territorial and chase each other out.
| Esp during nesting.
|
| Whether it's whistling close to their tones, "Pishing" to get
| their attention, or playing sounds from phones, all of it
| interrupts their normal behavior. Cars, trucks, lawnmowers,
| motorcycles all mess with them too.
|
| https://www.sibleyguides.com/2011/04/the-proper-use-of-playb...
|
| >When song is played in a bird's territory, that bird's
| response to the "intruder" is watched attentively by
| neighboring males and by females. In one study (Mennill et al
| 2002) high-ranking male Black-capped Chickadees exposed to
| aggressive playback lost status as their mates and neighbors
| apparently perceived them as losers, unable to drive away the
| phantom intruder.
|
| It's clear we're capable of mimicking their language with our
| devices and playing it back to them has potential consequences
| to breaking up a family of birds.
| busyant wrote:
| I have "butt Merlined" a few times...
|
| Each time, I think to myself ... _That bird is CLOSE! Let me
| take my phone out of my pocket and see if Merlin knows what it
| is ... DAMMNIT!_
| rigrassm wrote:
| I love this app! Just started using it a month or so ago to
| figure out who the loud ass bird in the woods behind my house was
| which ended up being a Tufted Titmouse (who are now one of my
| favorites, so awesome looking) and a Carolina Wren (not as pretty
| but makes up for it with its songs).
|
| For the last month, my morning routine has completely changed and
| instead of sitting inside. I now spend my mornings out back
| refilling and cleaning feeders, putting out some peanuts to
| appease the squirrels, and then plopping down on the deck with
| some coffee/breakfast and MerlinID running on my phone.
|
| I'm no good at learning a new human language but after a month of
| using this app regularly, I can consistently ID not just the
| different species, but also some individual birds by their
| distinct calls and voices.
|
| The only thing I wish it had is a way to catalog individual birds
| and have recordings of their calls and pictures of them saved
| together.
|
| Hats off to the devs of this app, hands down the best app I've
| used in a long time!
| dsizzle wrote:
| Not sure what you mean - both the "Explore" part and the Life
| List both have the pics and the calls together?
|
| It is indeed a good app, but my beef is how bad it is at adding
| birds to your life list. After ID'ing a bird by sound or
| picture it'll ask you where/when you found it with the worst
| defaults -- it'll know where you are and what time it is, but
| it sometimes randomly picks some time/place you've been at
| months ago (even ignoring that you may have just entered
| several at your current location)!
| rigrassm wrote:
| Oh yeah, I use those features, what I want is to be able to
| isolate specific calls and store that exact sound clip along
| with pictures I took to try and keep track of individual
| birds that visit regularly.
| lax_och_potatis wrote:
| If you're getting serious into birding, a lot of folks do the
| lists with the separate app eBird, which lets you make lists
| of birds you've seen on say, a given walk in a specific park.
| It's like a digital version of a bird checklist you might
| find at a wildlife refuge.
|
| (Pro tip, if you have 100 seagulls you don't want to count
| individually, you can use X to say you don't know. Also you
| can enter a general group like "gull sp." if you can't quite
| identify which kind of seagull they are)
| itstrue wrote:
| A wonderful app that's helped me learn about so many birds!
|
| It is surprising that this app can mistake the human
| voice/whistles for some birds (try hooting like an owl or
| whistling like a sparrow/starling)!
| tristor wrote:
| I really love Merlin as a hobbyist nature photographer. Not just
| the sound ID, but even more importantly it has a wonderful
| function that allows you to visually ID a bird from a photo. I
| don't know much about birds, other than having an appreciation at
| a distance and finding them photogenic, and Merlin has helped me
| learn a lot about the birds I've photographed as well as
| identifying them. This is one of the most important apps on my
| phone. One of the best things I've seen come out to the public
| from academia.
| yakk0 wrote:
| Another parent in my kid's Cub Scout pack told me about this a
| few years ago. It's been really cool to use on camping trips, and
| lately I've been using it while walking the dog. There's a lot
| more different types of birds around me than I had realized.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Would love this for my Meta Ray Bans and generally have wanted
| this for all animal sounds heard on hikes and elsewhere.
| xpe wrote:
| I'm a regular user, and I highly recommend it. / Here are some
| things that I'm not clear on (admittedly because I haven't
| researched them yet):
|
| 1. Are recordings shared with Cornell? By default?
|
| 2. Is it "recommended" or "expected" that I try to get a visual
| id on the birds, too?
| ggerules wrote:
| I'm also a regular user.
|
| Q1: To my knowledge for the merlin app, no. Just local storage
| to your phone as a WAV file.
|
| Q2: If you've started down the path of using Merlin, there is a
| companion app from the Cornell group called ebird. It used GPS
| to list birding Hotspot near your location. You can keep track
| of what you've seen. If you want to get extra verification on
| your sightings you can upload pictures and audio files at a
| later time on the ebird website. Real live humans, volunteer
| birding experts, will verify your sightings. I've gotten to
| meet some very knowledgeable birders through this process. All
| of this data goes into scientific research. On the ebird
| website the have specific protocols on what make for a good
| observation. It is my understanding that submitted and vetted
| photos and audio files will make it into the NN models used by
| the Merlin app.
|
| Happy birding to everyone!
| krunck wrote:
| Does this have ads? What is the Schibsted tracker for?
| ggerules wrote:
| It does not have ads. They will put up a notification 2 or 3
| times a year for global non paid bird events.
|
| The GPS location is used by the model to narrow search results.
| on_the_train wrote:
| I can't even select woodpeckers because apparently they're not
| supposed to live here? Not even a way to turn off that filter.
| Woodpeckers are very common here
| faizshah wrote:
| I love this app for bird sounds. I found ChatGPT is pretty
| accurate for pictures of birds or plants as well.
| ziofill wrote:
| This was only 10 years ago https://xkcd.com/1425/
| lxe wrote:
| Didn't realize they had a photo ID now. I've been using it for
| sound id all the time.
|
| The photo id function correctly and quickly identified the house
| finch hatchlings in my backyard spider plant nest when ChatGPT or
| Claude could not.
| BooneJS wrote:
| My father is in his 80's, has poor hearing aids, but still goes
| out daily with his dSLR and Merlin to see what's around him and
| he still gets great shots. I'm really happy Merlin exists.
| robin-a wrote:
| Is it just me or am I right to be disappointed that the home page
| doesn't seem to have a merlin anywhere?
|
| Then I opened the app and my 'bird of the day' was a merlin.
| moonlion_eth wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizz_%28birding%29
| gammarator wrote:
| I love Merlin! It's worth noting that some of its early funding
| was provided by the National Science Foundation:
| https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1010818
| uslic001 wrote:
| I have been using it for a year since we bought a small farm. I
| donated to support them just last month. Great app. Only thing I
| see trip it up is mockingbirds.
| fyhn wrote:
| The only app I have that I actually like. It's great.
| skhameneh wrote:
| I use BirdNET, which is also from Cornell. Supposedly BirdNET has
| a larger data set.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Does anyone have BirdNet running on generic x86 hardware? Or is
| it just for Raspberry Pi?
| shellfishgene wrote:
| You mean BirdNet-Pi? That's just for a Raspi, but have a look
| at the above mentioned BirdNet-Go, that runs on any Linux
| box.
|
| The guy you replied to probably was talking about the BirdNet
| Android/iOS app, which also identifies birds by sound,
| similar to Merlin.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| If you're interested in this, https://www.birdweather.com/ is a
| kinda neat automated sound-based bird ID and tracker in a nice
| little package. I'm not involved with it in any way, I've just
| seen it around recently and I'm interested in this space. You
| might also like Wildlife Sound Recording Society (WSRS)
| https://www.wildlife-sound.org/
| crorella wrote:
| We use this! With BirdNET-Pi gifted some to a couple of friends
| too!
|
| We configured it so it send me real time alerts when uncommon
| birds are detected.
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