I recently had my mind blown by Merlin, the birding app published by Cornell Ornithology. Specifically it was blown by the feature that identifies birds within earshot by sound. I ran it for exactly one minute on our deck and even with a neighbor's lawn mower droning in the background it identified nine birds.
Now, none of these except one was at all a surprise to me; they're all common birds on the property, as are several more identified in other sessions. This only validates the app's accuracy in my view.
The magic of it for me is that I think this is going to be a major breakthrough in my ability to learn birding by ear through reverse engineering, so to speak. I've always been pretty bad at that. With this thing in hand, I'm like "Oh, that's what makes that call!"
Now, none of these except one was at all a surprise to me; they're all common birds on the property, as are several more identified in other sessions. This only validates the app's accuracy in my view.
The magic of it for me is that I think this is going to be a major breakthrough in my ability to learn birding by ear through reverse engineering, so to speak. I've always been pretty bad at that. With this thing in hand, I'm like "Oh, that's what makes that call!"
