BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 4, 2022
Merlin is magic. I am referring to a bird identification app that I recommended to you a few weeks ago. It’s a free download from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, at Merlin.AllAboutBirds.org. After another few weeks of testing, I’m now certain it could help a lot of people identify birds that they are hearing. If the song you are hearing doesn’t quite match up with what’s in the database, Merlin could guess wrong. Fortunately, the database upon which Merlin relies is awesome. Merlin can be taught new songs and variations as they are sent in, increasing its speed and accuracy. That’s my new mission in life. I hear birds singing badly all the time. Some of them are so bad, they’re an embarrassment to their mothers. I intend to record the ones I positively identify, and send them in. ~ Bob Duchesne