There have been a lot of changes in the past year. It’s been interesting to see how Wink’s and Finn’s absence have been telegraphed through our little wild kingdom.
One of the most noticeable differences is in the number of birds that now feel comfortable in much closer proximity to our house.
When Wink and Finn were here, pretty much zero came inside our fence. Just this afternoon, there were several that I could single out by sight and sound, and a few that I couldn’t.
Since I have a thing about knowing as much as I can about the land I live on and the creatures that share it, I looked for an app that would help identify each birdsong, so I could more easily recognize the song that I’m less familiar with and put it with the proper bird.
The app I’m using and love is Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab. It’s free and you can get it on both the App Store and Google Play.
You can search by area, type of bird, birdsong and more. For the list you see on the left, I used the “Sound ID” recorder. This is what it picked up in a little over a minute. I can testify that all of these birds were, indeed, in my view. Then I could tap on each bird image to hear their song. Fantastic help for separating out birdsong that sounds similar. The yellow highlight indicates the birdsong that is being picked up at that instant.
If you’re looking for a great all-around birding app, give this a try. So far, it’s my favorite.
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