Merlin Bird ID • Hacker News Board

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#21

Post by podlp » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:32 AM UTC

Merlin is far less capable in developing countries either because there’s less available crowdsourced data, or it’s intentionally suppressed to reduce its use by unskilled poachers

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#22

Post by michaelmior » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:32 AM UTC

BirdNET-PI[0] may be of interest to this crowd. It uses a Raspberry Pi with a microphone to identify birds continuously based on their calls.

[0] https://www.birdweather.com/birdnetpi

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#23

Post by sgarman » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:33 AM UTC

I was thinking of trying to run this at home: https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#24

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:45 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#25

Post by shellfishgene » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:48 AM UTC

sgarman wrote: post #23

I was thinking of trying to run this at home: https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go

It's very nice, I prefer it to Birdnet-pi. It's been running very well for a few months now. It's cool to see the daily and seasonal changes in the detections.

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#26

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 6:04 AM UTC

Used it a couple of nights ago to find out that here in Berlin we have a massive Nightingale population

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#27

Post by urban_winter » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 6:07 AM UTC

Fantastic app. My wife and I are gradually becoming able to recognise more and more birds by their call. This is great because the human ear is better than the app at rejecting environmental noise - so we can spot birds by their call even close to a noisy road when the app cannot.

The app, at least on my Pixel 6, struggles with very high frequency calls - e.g. long-tailed tits.

My best spot yet? A nightingale in Wimbledon.

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#28

Post by eichin » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 6:12 AM UTC

Of interest:

> Sound ID is trained on audio recordings that are first converted to visual representations (spectrograms), then analyzed using computer vision tools similar to those that power Photo ID.

Yeah, the spectrogram scrolling by at the top isn't just a cute gimmick, that's actually how the recognition works...

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#29

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 6:23 AM UTC

urban_winter wrote: post #27

Fantastic app. My wife and I are gradually becoming able to recognise more and more birds by their call. This is great because the human ear is better than the app at rejecting environmental noise - so we can spot birds by their call even close to a noisy road when the app cannot. The app, at least on my Pixel 6, struggles with very high frequency calls - e.g. long-tailed tits. My best spot yet? A nightingale in Wimb…

I find it great for familiar birds that only make certain calls when they are less visible and others out in the open. Let's you connect the variety of sounds throughout the day to specific species.

Re: Merlin Bird ID

#30

Post by rjim86 » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 6:29 AM UTC

I recently found this app and I'm loving it. I actively use this when i go for walk, hike and camping. Thanks team for the amazing work