Garden birds today according to my Merlin app

[Delphigirl]

The Birds in my garden are all out and enjoying the breezy sunshine this morning. This is what I’ve caught in 16 minutes… would love to see others’ lists!
pS the chiff chaff is particularly noisy

I've just downloaded Merlin - had never heard of it! Went outside for 5 mins, and so far it's identified chaffinches, a robin and - this one I didn't know we had - a willow warbler. West coast of Ireland - I have loads of other birds that visit my feeders, so am looking forward to recording them all in the morning :) Thanks OP for starting this thread :)

I've just started doing a garden survey. I pick a week each month and record everything I hear or see from my garden. I'm going to record 12 months to see how it varies over the year. March was the first month and I recorded 25 species. Annoyingly I could hear a woodpecker tapping on a tree but couldn't see it to identify which type so haven't included that one.

I had more luck the 2nd time around!

Really pleased to see the long tailed tits are still visiting my garden. I wouldn’t have noticed them if the app hadn’t pointed them out.

Btw, is the app a bit rubbish when it comes to gulls? I have a lot of them nearby, constantly shouting their heads off. The app identifies them as…sparrows?!

I've just downloaded this app so looking forward to using it.

In the meantime, I'm trying to stop a blue tit attacking the windows. I've tried paper on the insides and cling film in the outsides but it doesn't seem to be deterring him. Anything else I could try? The feeder and water are full and I keep well away from the bush where I think they're nesting but he really does seem to be wasting a lot of energy by attacking the glass.

Merlin is a useful app but not infallible. Sometimes it can't even identify a song thrush when I can see the bird sitting there singing. Or that low chirruping robins do sometimes( it recognises their song). Other times it says it's heard a bird that it simply wouldn't have, eg once it said it heard a kingfisher, but I'm not near any stream, river, pond or any water where there would have been one. Agree with pp about it not being good at identifying starling song. But always interesting to see what it hears and you can learn to recognise different songs.

It thinks it's attacking an enemy when it sees its reflection in the glass. Last year a female blackbird kept attacking my downstairs loo window, she did it multiple times a day for about 6 weeks, I couldn't stop her. Then all of a sudden she stopped doing it, very strange.

I love Merlin - I have been using it for a couple of years.

I have found that it isn't able to identify juvenile birds and isn't very good with gulls.

It has occasionally come up with some weird things like a Little Owl on the beach in the middle of the day.

Having said that, it once identified an Osprey overhead. I laughed and thought that must be wrong but have since learned that are sometimes in this area -in central Scotland.

I didn't know about the app but am going to download it now. I'm in South Africa so I will share my visitors.

I know for sure that our resident Hadida will be on the list, along with his 3 other family members. Dear lord they make the biggest noise ever 🤣. They are here every morning and every evening without fail.

Oh and we also have an Egyptian Goose but he may have begun his migration now as I haven't heard him in a few days. Good travels friend, honk honk.

We’re big fans of Merlin - we’re starting to learn some of the songs and calls beyond the really obvious ones. More likely to spot something too once you know what you’re looking for I think eg chiffchaffs.
We’ve just had a weekend away by the Solway Firth so have added barnacle geese to our list - thousands, fattening up ready to return to Svalbard later this month.

We had a long-tailed tit do it one year. It was hammering on the kitchen window constantly.

Late to the flock and haven't read the full thread but

1. I know my merlin app wrongly attributes some of the song thrush's singing to the oystercatcher so I ignore.
2. chiffchaff are crazy this year! I've never heard so many everywhere I go
3. we had a travelling Hoopoe

I love the Merlin app. I often leave it on up my allotment to see what's around. Mostly Robins, Chiffchaffs and Dunnocks.
The only bird of prey mine has recognised is a Common Buzzard.
I was drifting off to sleep once but heard an owl so quickly turned it on to see what type of owl it was. A Tawney owl apparently. And it's a regular visitor now.

I think that too @Hortus but apart from the covers and the cling film to try to stop the reflection, I'm not sure what else I can try.

Yesterday I saw a green woodpecker, a great spotted woodpecker and a tree creeper as well as various more often seen ones.

My parents had a robin that persistently attacked the car wing mirror for the same reason. They called it Percy, short for Mr Perseverance.

I had a real love / hate relationship with a pair of crested barbets. I don't know if you get them, but they are from the woodpecker family and have solid beaks.

The pair would peck at my car wing mirrors and into the windshield, which also involved them wrecking my window wiper blades. They completely shredded them. I used to have to put the car to bed at night covered up with flat boxes and bags on the mirrors. They were terrors. But then again, every single day they came to say hello to me too. And when they were not destroying things, they were very sweet.

I eventually hung up some old DVDs and they did leave my car alone after that. They come back every now and then as since then their tree was cut down, but they must have moved on to someone else's car now.

So you could give that a try?

Off to download the Merlin app. Thank you!

I love this app. Only just came across this thread this evening but will join tomorrow!

I find it’s less efficient at picking up the lower frequency calls. But a lot of my lists look like the screenshots upthread - although unfortunately in my region we don’t get any cuckoos or nightingales.

It’s interesting here in the autumn when all the migrating geese pass through. And I’m hoping for the return of the swifts soon.

I love this app. I’m envious of some of your gardens. I only ever get robins, blue tits and a one legged pigeon in mine .

I suspect if you use this AI powered recognition app it will tell you all the numbers of incredibly rare birds that are actually appearing in your garden, like everyone else in this thread.

And you won't have learned a thing.

It's why foragers are campaigning for people to stop using these apps to "identify" plants and mushrooms for eating. They're extremely fallible and people can become seriously ill.

I thought Merlin had got it wrong when it identified an osprey somewhere I did not expect to find one, but that was later corroborated by other sources (there was in fact an osprey pair nesting nearby).

It does sometimes get it wrong, obviously, but because it knows your location, it does put less likely identifications with a red dot (I think - it's a while since I've had one) to show they may be dubious.

I would certainly never rely on an app to identify mushrooms or anything edible, but getting a strong steer on what bird you can hear singing from the middle of a bush is not exactly a life-or-death matter, and it helps you learn to recognise the calls yourself.

My London garden this week has had blue tits, great tits, sparrows, goldfinches, robins, jays, collared doves, pigeons and ring-necked parakeets (not a mistake).

I'll definitely try something shiny @isthismylifenow. I've heard that used for magpies and pigeons before but didn't think to use it for this tiny (and very noisy!) blue tit.

Owls tawny barn and little. 10 pm to 3.30 am
curlews 4 am to 9 pm.

I managed to stop a lovestruck wagtail obsessing over its image in a window by cutting out a paper 'seagull' and sticking it to the inside of the glass.

Long-tailed-tit at home doing family duty

I also got an oystercatcher today!

I do a lot of birdwatching and much of that is done by ear. So I’m as certain as I can be that there is no oystercatcher hiding in my garden, or close enough for the app to pick the sound up.

I’m very impressed though by what the app is getting right. And I love that it’s getting people to have a proper listen to what’s going on around them. That can only be a good thing 🥰

I’m also loving that LTT nest @DeanElderberry. Don’t know how widely known this is, but LTTs incorporate a lot of spider webs into their nest, so that the nest can expand as the chicks get bigger. That just blows my mind! Long tailed tits are not just a pretty face. They’re little engineers!