Merlin Bird App

I downloaded the (free) Merlin Bird App and have been using it a lot over the past month whilst making recordings out in the field. It's simple to use and works in real time so it has helped me to learn how to identify birds as I can hear them, which has vastly improved my knowledge of birds and their calls and songs. It works, not by analysing the sound, but by picking up visual patterns when the sound is represented as a spectrograph. This visual element helps the user to see the sounds of birds as well, which certainly helps me as some of my higher register of hearing is really underperforming. I have also used the app on older recordings to help identify birds, but as the information gathered by the app is sent to a central database, I make sure to delete these files before that happens. The developers at Cornell University Labs are using the power of citizen science to build a maps about birds numbers and migrations, so by using the app you are helping with this huge conservation effort.