Have you ever been captivated by a melodious bird song, only to be left wondering, “What bird was that?” This universal feeling of curiosity is a common starting point for many bird enthusiasts. Fortunately, in the realm of Bird Song Identification, technology has made significant strides, offering user-friendly tools to bridge the gap between a mystery song and a confident identification.
In 2021, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology revolutionized bird song identification with the introduction of Sound ID in their free Merlin Bird ID app. Initially capable of recognizing over 400 species in the U.S. and Canada, Merlin’s Sound ID has expanded its impressive repertoire to encompass over 1,300 species across the Americas, Europe (Western Palearctic), and India. This expansion makes it an invaluable tool for anyone interested in bird song identification across a wide geographical range. (Learn more about Sound ID coverage.)
Blackburnian Warbler perched on a branch, singing its distinctive song, captured by Alicia Amber and preserved in the Macaulay Library.
The dream of automatic bird song identification has been decades in the making. The complexity of analyzing sound, with its variations in pitch, volume, and duration, presented a significant hurdle. The breakthrough arrived with an innovative approach: treating bird sounds as visual images. By applying advanced image classification algorithms, similar to those powering Merlin’s successful Photo ID feature, researchers could finally “see” sound. Grant Van Horn, a key figure in this development and now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, spearheaded the Merlin team’s efforts.
Van Horn explains, “Each sound recording is transformed from a waveform into a spectrogram. This spectrogram visually represents the amplitude (volume), frequency (pitch), and duration of the sound.” He further elaborates on the analogy to image recognition, stating, “Just as Merlin identifies a bird from a photograph, it now uses this ‘picture’ of a bird’s song to make an identification.”
This groundbreaking sound identification technology seamlessly integrates into the existing Merlin Bird ID app. Merlin now offers a comprehensive suite of identification methods: identifying a bird by its song, by a photograph, by answering five simple questions about a sighting, or by exploring a regionally specific list of expected birds. This multi-faceted approach positions Merlin as a powerful and versatile tool for bird identification, catering to various user preferences and situations.
Getting Started with Merlin Sound ID for Bird Song Identification
Utilizing Sound ID for bird song identification is remarkably straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:
1. Download and Install Merlin: Begin by downloading the free Merlin Bird ID app. If you are a new user, simply download the app and follow the installation prompts. Existing Merlin users can access Sound ID by tapping “Get Sound ID” within the app.
2. Locate a Singing Bird: When you hear a bird singing, activate Sound ID from the app’s main menu and press the record button. Merlin will immediately begin analyzing the ambient sounds and generate a list of potential bird species it detects.
3. Real-time Identification: As you record, your phone screen will display a list of possible species. Each suggestion is accompanied by a thumbnail image of the bird and access to examples of their songs and calls from the extensive Macaulay Library. Merlin dynamically updates the list, highlighting species in yellow each time it recognizes their song again. This real-time feedback is invaluable for confirming identifications and learning to associate songs with species.
4. Optimize Recording Conditions: For optimal bird song identification, minimize background noise. If Merlin struggles to identify a bird, try moving closer to the singing bird, if possible without causing disturbance. Review tips for minimizing extraneous noise to improve your recording quality and Merlin’s accuracy.
5. Review and Refine Your Identifications: After recording, take advantage of Merlin’s review features. You can replay sections of the recording to re-examine species suggestions. Tapping on a species in Merlin’s list instantly jumps to the point in the recording where that sound occurred. This allows for direct comparison between Merlin’s identification and the actual sound, facilitating learning and refinement of your bird song identification skills. Furthermore, you can compare the identified song to a wealth of recordings in Merlin’s sound library, solidifying your understanding of each bird’s vocalizations.
6. Save and Share Your Discoveries: Merlin automatically saves your recordings, allowing you to revisit them at any time. These recordings can be deleted or moved to external storage if device space becomes a concern. You can also use Merlin’s Save My Bird feature to add Merlin-identified species to your life list, tracking your birding journey.
7. Verify Your Sound IDs: While Merlin Sound ID is a powerful tool, remember that bird song identification, even for experts, can be challenging. Treat Merlin’s suggestions as a highly informed starting point. Whenever possible, visually confirm a new bird song identification by spotting the bird and observing it singing. This dual confirmation – auditory and visual – enhances accuracy and strengthens your birding skills.
If you encounter any difficulties with installation or usage, Merlin offers comprehensive help pages to guide you through troubleshooting.
Advanced Techniques and Creative Uses of Sound ID for Bird Song Identification
Merlin Sound ID opens up exciting possibilities for enhancing your birding experience. Drew Weber, Merlin project coordinator, suggests these engaging applications to further refine your bird song identification skills:
1. Deciphering the Dawn Chorus: The dawn chorus, a symphony of bird songs in spring and early summer mornings, can be overwhelming. Merlin excels at dissecting this complex soundscape, identifying individual singers within the chorus. The ability to isolate and review each identified bird’s song repeatedly makes Merlin an exceptional learning tool for mastering bird songs and calls within a multi-species environment.
2. Cracking Chip Notes and Calls: Birds communicate not only through elaborate songs but also through short, often subtle chip notes and calls. These can be particularly challenging to identify by ear alone. Merlin can often successfully identify common species like Northern Cardinals, White-throated Sparrows, Song Sparrows, and Dark-eyed Juncos even from these brief vocalizations, provided the recording is clear. Experiment with Merlin to decode these quieter avian communications.
3. Amplifying Your Auditory Perception: Merlin acts as “super ears,” detecting bird songs that might be faint or distant to the human ear. Birds singing at a distance or those with high-pitched songs, such as Blackpoll Warblers, Blackburnian Warblers, and Cedar Waxwings, can be easily missed. Merlin can detect and display these elusive calls, effectively training your own ears to recognize a wider range of bird vocalizations and expanding your bird song identification capabilities.
4. Differentiating Similar-Sounding Species: Merlin Sound ID is particularly valuable for distinguishing between visually similar species that have distinct songs. Flycatchers, for example, often pose identification challenges based on appearance alone. Merlin can reliably differentiate between Alder Flycatchers and Willow Flycatchers, among other similar species, based on their unique vocalizations, enhancing your precision in bird song identification.
The Science Behind Merlin Sound ID: How Accurate Is Bird Song Identification with the App?
The accuracy of Merlin’s bird song identification is rooted in a robust training process and a vast dataset. To train Merlin, the development team curated a minimum of 100 recordings for each species, amassing a total of 45.6 years of sound recordings for the most recent Sound ID model. Volunteers meticulously trimmed and classified each recording, preparing it for input into a sophisticated machine-learning model. This model learned to recognize each song and its natural variations. Furthermore, Merlin leverages eBird data to incorporate location and time-of-year information, increasing the likelihood of accurate identification by considering which birds are most probable in a given context.
Baltimore Oriole perched on a tree branch, vibrant colors highlighted in a photo by Andrew Simon from Macaulay Library.
Despite Merlin’s sophisticated technology, some species present greater challenges for bird song identification than others. Willow Flycatchers, with their consistent songs across North America, are relatively straightforward for Merlin to identify. In contrast, species like Baltimore Orioles, known for individual variations in their songs, can be more complex. However, the continuous growth of the Macaulay Library, with its thousands of oriole song recordings, ensures that Merlin’s models are constantly improving.
Future updates promise to further refine Merlin’s bird song identification capabilities. The planned direct audio upload feature from Merlin to the Macaulay Library will create a feedback loop, allowing user recordings to directly contribute to training future machine-learning models, ensuring ongoing improvement and accuracy in bird song identification.
Jessie Barry, Merlin project leader, emphasizes that Sound ID represents a significant advancement in connecting people with the natural world through sound. Matt Schloss, Macaulay Library web designer and an advanced beginner birder who beta-tested the app, echoes this sentiment.
“Merlin has opened my ears to birds I previously overlooked. It feels like having a superpower, an enhanced ability to perceive the avian world,” Schloss remarks. “I believe Merlin Sound ID will fundamentally transform how people engage with birding.”
Merlin’s groundbreaking sound identification capability is a testament to years of dedicated work by the Merlin team. It is built upon the immense contributions of bird observations and sound recordings from tens of thousands of citizen scientists using eBird and the Macaulay Library. Their collective efforts have made this revolutionary tool for bird song identification a reality.
