I've been using it for a few years now just to identify the local (Arizona) birds in my neighborhood. It was also fun to use it when I was in South Dakota last year. I've gotten most of my family interested in the same, just through use of the app
Merlin Bird ID
121–130 of 221 posts
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#122I'm friends with some of the researchers on the Sound ID portion of this app! The team's gone to great lengths to make sure the machine learning models and evals are solid. Under the hood, Sound ID is a great example of how "domain-expert-driven" careful research can give more reliable results than just feeding in data and hoping for the best.
It is amazing, but it does often give false positives. That probably can't be avoided, though
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#123love this app
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#124My favorite part of the app is the spectrogram - I'm not sure exactly why but seeing the songs has made learning which bird goes with which song so much easier.
Also a shout out here to Bird Song Hero: https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/bird-song-hero/
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#125I'm friends with some of the researchers on the Sound ID portion of this app! The team's gone to great lengths to make sure the machine learning models and evals are solid. Under the hood, Sound ID is a great example of how "domain-expert-driven" careful research can give more reliable results than just feeding in data and hoping for the best.
It does work pretty well. Great for non line-of-sight birding.
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#126Berlin's Museum of Natural History (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) has a nice app for identifying plants and animals called Naturblick. It's available in English.
https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/research/naturbli...
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#127I really wish this existed for web as well.
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#128To me, Merlin is the shining example of what "a computer in everyone's pocket" could have been. Such an amazing app that connects so many people more intimately with the world around them. I get occasional nudges to support their organization, but it's a clear and direct appeal, there are no dark patterns that I'm aware of.
iNaturalist is another gem. Hackers please support these apps so they don’t turn into the AllTrails and Couchsurfing type rackets that we deserve.
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#129To me, Merlin is the shining example of what "a computer in everyone's pocket" could have been. Such an amazing app that connects so many people more intimately with the world around them. I get occasional nudges to support their organization, but it's a clear and direct appeal, there are no dark patterns that I'm aware of.
[deleted]
Re: Merlin Bird ID
#130To me, Merlin is the shining example of what "a computer in everyone's pocket" could have been. Such an amazing app that connects so many people more intimately with the world around them. I get occasional nudges to support their organization, but it's a clear and direct appeal, there are no dark patterns that I'm aware of.
iNaturalist is another gem. Hackers please support these apps so they don’t turn into the AllTrails and Couchsurfing type rackets that we deserve.
Merlin is run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, so it should (hopefully!) remain good and free, unlike apps by private companies with a profit motive.