Cornell Lab of Ornithology Merlin Bird App

While sitting on my cousin’s patio in Massachusetts last week after dinner, we heard a lot of birds. Her balcony faces a wetlands or conservation area so there are a lot of sounds to be heard and a lot of birds to be seen. Then she pulled out the Cornell ornithology bird app and was able to show us exactly what birds we were hearing. It was simply a matter of pressing the microphone button and recording the song -and the results were immediate. I’ve always liked birds so I found this fascinating. So I downloaded the app and thought we would give it a try when we got home. You can identify the birds by describing what you see, uploading a photo, or by listening to the sound. And obviously there are a whole host of other options available including an encyclopedia of sorts. As we were taking a morning walk in the neighborhood park two days ago and this morning, I pulled out the app and just started recording. Immediately the pictures and names of the birds started to kick in. There was the house finch, gray catbird, blue jay, red shouldered hawk, northern cardinal, robin, and Carolina wren on the first day. This morning there was the cardinal, eastern wood-pewee, Carolina wren, indigo bunting, house wren, tufted titmouse, red winged blackbird, blue jay and northern flicker! I never realized there were so many different birds fluttering around. I never heard of several of them. What will be interesting is to see if they change over time, or if the same ones are located in the same places each day. So I’m glad we were introduced to this app. Now we will have a better idea of what is around us at the tip of our fingers - and learn something new at the same time.