Merlin is an excellent ID tool when it comes to hawks like this Cooper’s.

With my camera, binoculars, and the newest rendition of the Merlin app on my cell phone I sat on the deck to watch and listen for the birds that ventured into my yard for either a meal or a bath! The most recent version of the Merlin bird ID app includes sound ID. I wanted to know whether it was up to the challenge of identifying my welcome and well-known feathered friends, especially by sound.

I recorded every familiar bird call, chirp, or song. Merlin made no mistakes. It quickly identified the “dee, dee, dee” of the black-capped chickadee and the nasal “yank, yank” of the red-breasted nuthatch. Merlin also recognized, without hesitation, the harsh “shack-shack-shack” of the Steller’s jay the “drink your tea” call of the spotted towhee.

Merlin, the magical and clever bird ID app also identifies birds from photos that we have taken and submit when asked. It also asks for the location of the bird, which helps Merlin search the most relevant data base. Once again, to test it, I only asked Merlin to identify birds that I knew the name of for sure. In most cases, Merlin got it right even if my photo was soft or small. Sometimes, Merlin will offer a few choices, which can be difficult if you are trying to ID an unknown species. However, close observation of the description most often helps with the selection of the right one from the suggestions.

The Cornell lab’s Merlin ID app currently boasts a data base of over 7,500 species of birds. Besides asking Merlin to identify a species by photo or sound it also allows us to explore the birds in the data base. An exploration of a species provides ID information, sounds and a range map. All are very helpful with bird identification.

I now take my cell phone into the field whenever I go birding. Merlin has proven to be a useful tool for unknown songs, calls or chips that I hear which then leads me to concentrate on looking for the bird itself to confirm my sighting.

Merlin is indeed magical. It is a very useful tool for IDing birds that we aren’t sure of or can’t identify. It saves the sound files we record, provides a picture of the bird, and provides all the calls and songs of the bird.

“Merlin features the best of community contributed photos, songs, and calls, tips from experts around the world to help you ID the birds you see, and range maps from Birds of the World — all powered by billions of bird observations submitted to eBird.”

I have only scratched the surface on Merlin in this article so for more information and specific tips for using Merlin check out the website merlin.allaboutbirds.org The best part of this magical app is that it works well, and it is a free download from the app store!

Happy birding!