Love this new Merlin bird sounds app

[Delphigirl]

From a recommendation on here I downloaded the Cornell university bird app called Merlin. If you press record somewhere birds are tweeting it tells you what bird you are listening to. It is totally compelling and I’ve only done it 3 or 4 times.
So far in my garden it has identified:
Blue tit
Coal tit
chaffinch
dunnock
blackcap
nuthatch
treecreeper
goldcrest
greater spotted woodpecker
wood pigeon
Collared dove
blackbird
thrush
robin
wren
Magpie
jay
jackdaw
crow
raven (that amazed me! High up in a pine, I couldn’t see him).

It does NOT identify chickens despite their best sqwawks. I need to get out there at night to identify my various noisy owls. It didn’t hear the kites circling above or the buzzard I saw high up, but the latter wasn’t crying much.

highly recommend!!!

It's great! I saw people sharing posts on twitter so have tried it a few times. Made me appreciate how much "gosh that's a lot of noisy birds" round my way is all just sparrows shouting at each other. Ha. On some woodland runs and walks I've heard some more interesting ones like siskin and goldcrests.

oh we don’t have sparrows, would love a sparrow! Haven’t seen one for years.
i’m going to take it into the woods right over my fence just around dusk and will see what I find…

I'd been seeing reports that house sparrows are getting more rare but must say in my neck of the woods in suburban Bristol there seem to be hundreds of the buggers and they're always shouting at each other!

I downloaded it after seeing the same post. I love it-what I thought was a wood pigeon is actually a collared dove!
Had house sparrows,blackbirds,starlings and gulls so far - mostly sparrows!

Do you have to pay for this app or is it a free one?

It’s free and it’s absolutely fab! I love recording the birds in my garden, going to set it to record in the garden later tonight and come and sit out with a glass of wine, desperate for it to pick up an owl or two as I hear them every night.

Thank you.

It's amazing. I saw the thread on here and downloaded it too. I keep showing it to everyone I know, I can't get over how good it is! For free!

I've just downloaded this sat in the garden. I can identify birds now instead of reading MN 😃Great app

It’s great!
shall we all do it say for 5 mins between 6 and 7 and then post what we found?

Thanks for the tip. Just taken it outside and it identified sparrows and goldfinches straight away. Can't wait to try it when I'm out walking later!

I'm so glad I've seen this thread. I have some birds in the garden I would love to know what they are. Thank you 😊

I use birdnerd it's great.

So got three new birds this morning -
Firecrest
hooded Crow
Green heron.

never even heard of a green heron, must go and google.

it struggle with Red Kite. I can hear it clearly but it doesn’t I’d it.

ok apparently a green heron is a seriously rare visitor. I wonder if that was correctly identified? I didn’t see it.

I love it! We live in woodland and often can't see the birds as they are up in the trees so it is lovely to identify what there is by sound.

My daughter sniffed while I was recording and it thought she was a rare American duck😀

🤣🤣 @eurochick Yes I am sceptical about the green heron

Common chiffchaff
stock dove

I downloaded it after my sister told me about it after a bloke was raving about it to her. It's mainly heard sparrows around our garden.

I like how it works out where you are so doesn't suggest a lesser spotted cheese eater (made up name) native to Honduras when you are in Croydon .

I heard a few new ones in Italy last week but they have the same Blackbirds and Robins as we do. Also Cuckoos - not heard any in SE England this year but half-way up a mountain in Italy - bam! (not that I needed Merlin to tell me what it was)

Although it does have it's limits obviously

My husband heard a cuckoo yesterday on a walk by the river in Bampton Oxon… none in my garden at the moment

I’m going to Italy tomorrow @squashyhat - will certainly try it out there!

Yes, if you get a very rare one be skeptical! It is searching for best approximation and has picked out some interesting choices.

My hens have been all sorts of weird geese and the neighbours’ baby was an owl.

Two or more blackbirds giving an alarm call is flagged as a mistle thrush, but I could see the blackbirds so knew it was a false ID.

You can select the bird and listen to a selection of its songs and calls, so when ai checked it, the mistle thrush alarm did sound similar to several blackbirds shouting at once.