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

Thanks OP for the Merlin app recommendation, it looks great. Someone else mentioned it to me this week as well, haven't tried it yet.

Well I was woken up at 4am this morning by the blackbirds and robins as usual but I tried the app and as well as them it also identified a wren amongst them. After listening a while I could hear it too, I did double check the sound and yes it was right. I knew we had wrens around here years ago but I have not seen one for about 10 years so that was a welcome surprise.
We also get starlings, goldfinches, blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, goldfinches, magpies and but it was obviously too early for them 😴

I’ve just tried it out and it could only pick up pigeon, blackbird, wren and a blackcap. I am near a main road though and didn’t get up early enough to check at a quiet time.

Improving the habitat quality is a much better way to support garden birds and will benefit a wide range of other wildlife too

Trouble is that takes time. When I moved in here around 20 years ago it was a newish build devoid of trees, bushes etc I fed the birds because where else were they getting food from? Nowadays it's lovely and green, loads of trees, lots of lawns (thankfully no artificial plastic grass!) flowers, bushes etc. we have a pond. But I do still feed the birds because they now rely on me. Maybe I should wean them off slowly?

That's because you need a scent identifier. One of those, another ten minutes on 180 and it'll be telling you it's corn fed from Waitrose.

YANBU but mainly for the fabulous line "no skin in the bird song game" 🤣👏

Thanks for this OP - just downloaded the app and have heard the usual garden birds plus skylarks (which I'm amazed to find in the garden) and greenfinches and yellowhammers in the hedges. We're very rural so I'm inordinately excited about the owl calls tonight. I know we've owls, and i think they're tawny owls, but really looking forward to finding out.

It's been a bit of a long week so this has really cheered me up, thank you.

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt , you have helped me achieve a long-held ambition… to see a goldcrest!

It told me the song coming from the fir tree was a goldcrest, so I got my binoculars and there it was! Tiny, tiny wee thing in massive tree, would never have found it without the Merlin app.

Thank you so much!

Oh, it does get things wrong sometimes - an orange or red dot seems to mean “not confident” as it called my hens Egyptian Geese and a finch a kingfisher.

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt generally, but garden bird feeders in particular. Bird feeding has grown into a massive industry and it's promoted pretty much everywhere you look, but it's not actually beneficial to wildlife as a whole. It's only recently that people are starting to look at it more critically, because most people just assume it's the right thing to do and that it's 'helping nature'.

The issue is that the species that benefit are common ones that are doing well anyway, and increased numbers of these are putting added pressure on rarer species including summer migrants and specialists that are already struggling with habitat loss etc. E.g. Willow Tits and Pied Flycatchers (both declining) suffer from their nest holes being taken over by Blue Tits and Great Tits respectively. It's not the only reason why these species are in trouble, but it contributes.

Bird feeding also does nothing to sustain all the insects and other invertebrates that are essential to the ecosystem, whereas supporting birds by providing good quality habitat with trees, shrubs, rough vegetation, flowers, ponds etc will benefit these as well.

Blackbird:

Who's the blackbird on this fence that's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft)
You're damn right
Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Shaft)
Can you dig it?
Where's the cat that won't cop out, causin' danger all about?
(Shaft)
Right on
You know this cat Ollie is a bad mother
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft
(Then we can dig it)
I'm a complicated man
But no one understands me but my woman
(John Shaft)

Sparrow:

Well, sometimes we go out by ourselves
And we look across the water
And we chat about the things we're doing
And chirp just like we ought to
Since we've made our home
Well, this garden's been a mess
And we hate your ginger cat
And the washing line of dresses
Oh, won't you come on over?
Start putting more Trill down for me
Why don't you come on over, Valerie?

Robin:

Fuck you, you're a fucking wanker
I'm gonna punch you right in the balls
Fuck you with a fucking anchor
You're all cunts, so fuck you all

I've always wondered if there was an app for this! So many times I've been out walking and found myself googling "what bird calls too-too-too-too too too too-too" "what bird calls like a car alarm but with pauses" etc.
Downloading it now!

@TabithaTitanium When your garden was new and bare, the lack of birds was an honest reflection of the fact that the habitat was providing nothing for them. And nothing much for other species either.

Improving it as you have done should have naturally brought in birds as the habitat provided more insects etc for them to eat. Same if all your neighbours had done the same - bird numbers would now be a good reflection of the habitat quality in each garden and overall.

Feeding unfortunately breaks that link - bird numbers become related more to food provided than habitat quality.

I think feeding can give people a free pass to thinking their gardens are much better for nature than they actually are because they see a lot of birds, when the reality is that only a handful of common species are thriving and everything else continues to decline. There are also the negative effects in terms of disease transmission and competitive effects on rare species that I mentioned in my previous post.

Wow. Thanks for this. I have just installed it and will try it out. I get so much joy from my plant ID app, this should be just as good.

Wow OP, thank you thank you thank you for this thread - I downloaded the app this morning and have spent far too long in the garden, with my cuppa, completely addicted! I hoped I had wrens and now I know I do, fabulous! Made my day.

And yes some owls are around in the daytime

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt I honestly think it's better to do nothing than to put food out. Better still though is to improve the habitat in any way. In general, more of: trees, shrubs, climbers, rough/tangled vegetation, flowers, weeds, ponds, compost heaps, deadwood.

And less of: hard surfaces, bare earth, bare fences, mown lawn, weedkiller, insecticides, other chemicals and artificial light at night.

Obviously can't necessarily do all that depending on garden size etc, but even a small change can make a difference. E.g. ponds don't just allow birds to drink and bathe, but produce a lot of food for birds and bats in the form of flying insects with aquatic larvae.

I love my decking. It’s near the house, raised 8 inches of the patch of ground that was always waterlogged. We have many, many frogs under there. But it means I can eat outdoors almost every day 4-5 months of the year.

But I’m lucky enough to have a lot of garden, with wild areas, mature trees, fruit trees and a large pond, so we do well for wildlife.