Review of Merlin Bird ID

Hello Reader,

Today’s post will be a review of Merlin Bird ID, an app used for bird identification.

As someone who has always loved birds and bird watching, but only recently decided to put in the effort to learn to identify them, Merlin Bird ID is one of my favorite apps on my smartphone. It is one of many tools provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to help educate current and aspiring birders.

Merlin Bird ID has a couple helpful features/options I would like to highlight, all of which let you identify birds with whatever information you have at your disposal. They are as follows:

-        Start Bird ID: This is the option you select if you spot a bird you do not recognize. You are then asked where and when you saw the bird, what it was doing, its size, and its color(s). Once this information is provided, you are given a list of potential birds you might have seen, as well as information about those birds (habitat, different calls they make, etc.). This is the feature I use the most on this app, and it has always helped me learn the names of the birds I’m observing.

-        Photo ID: This feature allows you to either take a picture of a bird you are currently looking at, or retrieve one you have saved on your phone. The app then cross references the picture with those in its own database to help ID the bird. This option has not worked particularly well for me yet, as it is often hard to get clear pictures of birds on my phone, but it is cool it is available to try.

-        Sound ID: This is a relatively new feature of the app that I admittedly have not used too much. That said, I have yet to be successful with it, but that is likely attributed to the fact that I live in a noisy city, so it is hard for the app to distinguish different sounds. I am excited to try using this feature once I get the opportunity to go somewhere quieter. I am curious though if it would have trouble IDing and distinguishing the birds if there were multiple different species calling at the same time.

-        Explore Birds: This option is basically a virtual field guide. It lists numerous species of birds, their descriptions, and important information about them. It also lets you play their calls which is a fun and useful tool.

Overall, I would say this is an excellent app, and an excellent tool for anyone interested in bird ID. The first option itself, where you are given a list of possible birds based on the information you enter, has helped me countless times this last year (my sister’s friend recommended it to me last summer!). I would recommend this app to anyone curious about the types of birds they are surrounded by.

Thanks,

Fran