To tell you about the Merlin app - Shazam for birds?

I've seen the app advertised and glad you/others are finding it useful/fun etc. I haven't got the app, a bit pointless for me - i can already recognise the whistles of my visiting birds since there aren't that many species in my area, just the usual common garden visitors but if i was in a position to go further afield, i'd be on it like a shot. I do like listening to those youtube vids of foreign species, some crackers amongst them.
I hope 2 things come from the use of the app though...

1. That people realise the pleasure of just spending 5 minutes of your day, just listening to natures beautiful choir, a free daily concert that's never the same 2 days running and does wonders in helping just chill out for a few minutes.
2. That it reminds people to look after their garden visitors and encourages feeding and watering of them.

This is brilliant - thanks OP! I've downloaded and am about to go for a walk 🙂

I don't know - Golden Plover is a UK breeding bird, but mainly on high moorland. It moves to wetlands for winter. The calls of Grey and Golden don't really sound similar at all to my ears, but Merlin may disagree!

I am currently surrounded by sparrows, robins, and blackbirds. Can't wait for the dawn chorus...and the owls (who will probably be quiet tonight now that I am listening).

YANBU. I love birds now I’m an adult one of the first things I taught DS was to identify lots of different birds. DH was amazed one morning when he took a very young DS to the park and he identified five within minutes.

However I’m nowhere near as good at identifying birdsong, so would love this app! Thanks, OP.

Parents might be interested in the RSPB’s guides for kids on birds, butterflies, trees, beetles etc. DS loves his and they have tick boxes.

A sad thing my late DUncle once told me, was that he remembered the dawn chorus being far louder in his youth than it is now, and his windscreen when driving used to be covered in bugs; that’s really reduced now in comparison. He’d lived abroad for 40 years, so really noticed the difference. Cheers for that, Bayer.

Thankyou for this OP
I spotted a green coloured bird I've never seen before, I discovered it was a greenfinch, the app has just picked its song up so it's about somewhere although I haven't seen it for a few days.

Hes a trouble causer though, he sat and threw loads of food out of the bird feeder and then flew off, I'm battling with rats on the garden at the moment, they were very appreciative of the food allover the floor though

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt
" I was reading earlier today how a local (ish) town to me, St Albans is currently cutting down lots of trees, ignoring the fact that it’s nesting season. It makes me so angry. "

That sort of thing makes me very angry too and yet i bet that council will be falling over itself to call itself " green " and be all hand wringy over " climate change "!
None of them give any thought about cutting trees down, even though they remove CO2 from the atmosphere and provide oxygen, a rather important job but your average councillor seems to be rather light in the kitty and have no idea about any of that ( not just referring to your council btw ) it's why i don't subscribe to any climate change pushes.
Then not only having destroyed the trees, they've destroyed nesting areas as you have quite rightly pointed out.
Some councils allow netting too, so yet again, nesting time is disrupted and breeding fails meaning fewer pollinators, so again, an act of legalised environmental vandalism, afaic.
My town threatens people with fines for feeding town centre pigeons but that also affects the pied wagtails and blue tits that also frequent the town centre, i doubt any of my local councillors even know they're there, tbh.
Anyhoo, rant over lol,
Incidentally, i think it just seems that there's always lots of sparrows/dunnocks about but they're certainly not in the number locally that i remember as a child, sadly.

Just downloaded, thanks OP

Thanks OP - great username btw! I love this

Many thanks for saying so @HoofWankingSpangleCunt it's always good to know that you're not alone in your thinking about stuff. :-)

I downloaded the app yesterday. It’s brilliant! Was woken up by the dawn chorus at 5am and it detected 5 birds in a couple of mins. An encore at 5:34 detected 11!
Im now addicted. It will make a pleasant change from my other app of choice, FlightRadar24 😉

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt 😂. I also stalk follow my DC and DP’s on FlightRadar24

Ooo, thanks for this, it’s brilliant. Just stuck my phone out of the window and got ten different birds. I can see myself losing hours to this.

I use bird net which run by Cornell university

Thank you @HoofWankingSpangleCunt

You have made someone who was feeling quite low so much brighter.
I have nothing hugely exciting in my garden but I love them anyway. I had forgotten to stop and listen.
I also hadn’t realised just how beautiful a blackbird sounds.

Is this Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Labs?

This is amazing thanks for the heads up OP

Thank you! This is just what I needed to find - the dawn chorus is deafening here (edge of the village and lots of trees) and I have really wondered about the songs I can hear. Impatiently waiting for the bird pack to download....

Yes. It’s brilliant 😀