Were you ever walking in the woods and heard birds calling and wondered what they were? Wonder no longer, Merlin is here to make your life easier.
Download the free app and launch it next time you are on a walk. It doesn’t matter where you are there are birds everywhere. Click on the sound ID button and Merlin will start a list of birds the software identified.
On a recent trip to Arizona I was running the app in Catalina Sate Park. Here are the birds Merlin identified, pretty cool.
Those Northern birds must be snow birds, sorry I couldn’t resist.
We are going to the big week in birding in 7 days. Most of the birders we see will have a phone in their hand and listening for calls using Merlin. They will also be using another popular app: IBird Pro. Ibird Pro helps you identify a bird based on what you are seeing.
From the lists above I selected Pyrrhuloxia and then looked it up on IBird Pro (free app). The app will show you the field marks to assist in confirming the identification.
You can then look up the bird’s range. If you think you saw a Pyrrhuloxia in Ohio, guess again.
Then it shows several photos, male and female.
Then it will show similar looking birds. Maybe that Pyrrhuloxia you saw in Ohio is actually a Northern Cardinal.
HAPPY BIRDING, STEVE