Merlin App Appreciation plus General Birding Chat

[DiggoryVenn]

A thread for all lovers of the Merlin app (app that allows you to identify birds by their sound). A place to share what you have spotted, ask questions and any other bird chat.

Caveat: I am pretty much a novice birdwatcher myself.

Mine for today: not sure about the Cetti's warbler but I could positively identify the rest.

@MagpiePi it is idyllic - I am so lucky. Bought this place over 35 years ago and never once had the urge to move. I have a beautiful view from my kitchen and garden of nothing but greenery and open space - no overlooking neighbours apart from the birds and other wildlife!
The parkland is well maintained by the council (think cricket field, football pitches etc.) but also has what the council calls "ecological pathways" where there are avenues of trees across that space and lots of foliage for the wildlife. Best of all, much of it's protected common land so can't be built on!
I do have daily visits from wood pigeons and several different types of corvids along with their offspring.
I find it all a great way to waste time! Love their antics...

@BasilParsley I think you might be right. I spotted a few long tailed tits in the hedges behind my garden earlier - there has been a noticeable absence of any real birdlife in my garden, apart from the robin with the annoying voice, for weeks.

A robin's voice is NEVER annoying! 😛

I beg to differ.

The arsey wee sod at the bottom of the garden shouts his alarm call for several hours at a time because blackbirds, dunnocks, blue tits, long tailed tits, goldfinches and house sparrows have the nerve to exist within his sightline.

Dude. It's a busy territory. You are not the Alpha, get over it.

(The other two robins are perfectly nice)

I really miss the laughing emoji so I'll just have to: hahahaha! Love it...! Fortunately, I don't have an arsey wee sod of any flavour around my territory!

Dunnocks are pretty annoying…

We had a walk in the local woods yesterday and definitely noticed the change in birdsong. (The Robin was initially the most vocal) Tonight We've just had a walk around our village and the Barn owl and Tawny owl are back. Earlier on today it really signalled to me that Autumn was almost here as the crows and rooks were the birds I heard most. I barely put Merlin on these days, but this was it's offering from the woods yesterday.

Thanks to a plethora of mature trees in adjoining gardens we have a lot of birds. Robins are bolshy territorial birds but not all of them are twats.

The one at the bottom of the garden is an utter git.

@MagpiePi , dunnocks sing like Kandinsky paintings and are all communal and poly amorous. They are living their best hippy lives.

A dunnock in the tree near to where I was sitting did a single note ‘tweet-tweet-tweet’ for about 10 minutes.
Could have been a warning call as the cat was around too.

(He’s sleeping next to me now and has just woken up and looked really confused when I played dunnock songs on Merlin 🤣)

I’m “lucky” to get blackcaps in my garden every winter. They make robins seem like zen masters. Anything that gets near their food gets attacked.

A few years ago it got so bad that I set up a special feeding area for the blackcap - a few slices of apple, as far away as possible from where the other birds were feeding. Even a blackcap can only defend one thing at a time, so that gave all the other birds some peace & quiet..until another blackcap took advantage of the power vacuum and I ended up with two of them terrorising the garden 😂

I think it was on one of these threads that someone described a blackcap as sounding like a robin on cocaine, @Festina .

Last day of school hols today for us and we had a walk in the woods. And what a rewarding couple of hours we had. Treeceeepers, Water Rails, Nuthatches and all manner of the usual suspects. The House Martins are also still around. It was so quiet as most of the other kids locally were back at school. What a treat!

DD and DDog also have matching coats this Autumn 🍂

I found myself at an RSPB reserve at the weekend, where one of the volunteers pointed out that the Merlin app can also identify birds from photos. I don’t know how I never noticed that. It’s an option on the front screen! 🤦‍♀️

It's a recent addition, don't feel bad.

Ahh I never noticed the option. That’s brilliant.

...you just need to get close enough to get a good photograph of the bird!

All my photos of birds just look like blurry circles !
I've had lots of sparrows on the feeders this year. All through summer.
They're lovely. They come in little groups to feed. I think they're tree sparrows which is nice, as some years they've been in decline.

I went to a local wetland reserve today as there's a glossy ibis arrived. Got rewarded for my efforts with over 20 massive mozzie bites. But I did see the ibis and a water rail.

On a recount there are 20 on my boobs alone plus loads round my waist. The gits got me through a bra, t-shirt and fleece!

That's made me go all itchy. Seeing the glossy ibis must have been a thrill though.

Certainly was, it's a very handsome bird.

I like our garden robin, he sings very prettily by the back gate when I'm gardening.

I know it's a robin because Merlin educated me...

I was visiting my Dad and enjoyed using Merlin in a different setting. It's not as sensitive on my Pixel phone as on my iPhone, though - I could hear quite a few birds the app couldn't pick up.

I can identify so many by song now that I never could before. It's a lovely feeling.

Came out of school this morning after dropping DD off to be treated to a flock of ring necked Parakeets flying overhead (my goodness, the noise!) I'd heard that we had about 30 breeding pairs at our local park, but I'd never actually seen them. It was quite surreal. They were all in a big tree when I went back to pick her up at 3pm. Very strange seeing such tropical birds in the NE of England

Pics from Merlin today and from a local newspaper article about our Parakeet flock here in North Tyneside

As far as I can tell, ring-necked parakeets drive every other bird species away. They're all you see in Kew Gardens.

On the plus side, I was putting the bins out this evening and heard a tawny owl calling.