Date: 7/8/25 9:46 am From: Charles H Mills <00000218c727d931-dmarc-request...> Subject: Re: Merlin
I have 45+ years of serious field birding under my belt. I also have Merlin installed on my iPhone.
If used properly, Merlin is a good tool that can broaden or enhance the capabilities of many if not all birders. However, It can and not uncommonly does suggest bogus audio or visual IDs. That being said, as its underlying technology improves as it certainly will, I believe that so to will its level of accuracy.
At the moment, I monitor a few Facebook groups devoted to Arkansas birds. It’s not uncommon to encounter posts with a photo(s) correctly identified by Merlin and others that aren’t. Those that aren’t usually fall into one of two categories. They either are to technically poor (lacking good focus or exposure) to be useful for Merlin or the subject wasn’t enlarged to properly fit within it’s square ID window. Either way, Merlin can come up with some truly off the wall suggested IDs.
My Achilles Heel as a birder is song recognition so, when I take walks, I’ll often use Merlin’s song recognition. Much of the time, it’s accurate but not always. For example, it has reported Scarlet Tanagers in SW AR in mid-summer. They occur here as migrants only. So, in such cases where I cannot put eyes on a claimed bird and confirm Merlin’s ID, I don’t include it on my list for that trip.
Charles Mills
Texarkana TX
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jul 8, 2025, at 10:12 AM, Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> wrote:
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> I’m always interested to hear how people use Cornell’s Merlin app. I compare these comments with my own experience. The current issue of Cornell’s Living Bird (summer 2025) has a really interesting essay by Andrew J. Lewis, “Listening, Belonging, and the Patterns we live by.” It is a very good read about his experience in using Merlin. I don’t have a link to the article, but if anyone knows how to get a link, please post it for others who don’t subscribe to the magazine.
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