Countryside living. Getting on a bit. It was only a matter of time before I gave into certain impulses: I’m curious about birdlife. It’s a curiosity that’s at risk of developing into outright geekiness.
It all started with a bird feeder outside the kitchen window – the regular kind, not a bird feeder camera currently on my wishlist. The feeder has enticed all manner of bird families; tits, chaffinches, nuthatches, treecreepers, sparrows, robins, magpies and the occasional Green or Great Spotted Woodpecker. One time I discovered a field mouse helping itself to the seed, though thankfully squirrels seldom come this close to the house.
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring the apps that we couldn't live without. Read them all here.
What a lovely thing, being so close to garden life from the vantage point of the kitchen sink – filling up the kettle has never been this enjoyable. I’ve learnt what all these Eurasian garden birds are by sight, being able to distinguish nuances in bird families; blue tits, great tits, coal tits and long tailed tits.
Knowing garden birds by sight are beginner-level basics though, and the woodlands around me are another world, pierced by the calls and songs of feathered dwellers I can’t see and know little about. Or at least, that was until recently.
A glimpse into the life of a birder and my curiosity grows
My friend who’s a keen ‘birder’ educated me recently during a photography walk. We were in a local common at first light and he knows what birds to expect in this area at any time of year, but also more specifically he knew what he was looking out for that morning thanks to Birdguides, where recent bird sightings are logged and shared by the community of birders.
He told me what he hoped to see and then later did a peculiar thing after ushering me to be quiet: lifted up his phone for half a minute. He then put his phone away, swivelled and pointed his DSLR camera and telephoto lens. Click, click, click. Picture review. Thumbs up in my direction.
He had opened the Merlin Bird ID app by Cornell to pinpoint the specific bird that he knew was in the vicinity, and had found what he was looking for. It took him no time at all to get some shots, though of course like any birder the luck isn't often on his side.
The app, colloquially known as Merlin, is available for free on iOS and Android and is pretty much the go-to for bird lovers. It can make audio recordings, and as a bird call is picked up, it indicates what bird you’re listening to. He showed me the 30 second recording which had several birds listed on screen as and when they tweeted. I was about to level up from curious to geek.
Your ears for thousands of birds
Back home I downloaded the Merlin app, and then its Britain and Ireland Bird Pack which supports 1382 birds, and for which I needed 613MB space on my device. There are loads of Bird Packs available for free, covering just about anywhere on earth, and there's no limit on how many packs you download (besides your device's remaining storage).
Before I knew it, I was out in the garden to see what Merlin was made of. Start recording… Great Tit. Pigeon. Blackbird. That Great Tit again.
I began playing the audio files back, studying the calls, familiarizing myself with each one. Many were already obvious to me, but it was helpful to confirm the Great Tit’s call specifically – I hear its call so often.
I took a morning walk at first light when the birds here are most active. Straight above my head in a tree was a particularly noisy robin close enough to see. I hit record in the Merlin app and, sure enough, robin popped up on the audio recording.
I’ve used Merlin enough on familiar bird families to trust its accuracy, though the mind does boggle given how much variety there can be even in just a single bird’s call: the Song Thrush has a huge range and I’ll need more practice to learn that one.
Months down the line, whenever I hear a bird call that I don’t know, out comes the Merlin app, handily on my phone.
Geeky looks like me playing back the audio recording over and over again to memorize numerous bird calls. Now I don’t need to see many of these birds to be able to tell you what’s chirping away. None of my friends know this about me yet, but I’m looking forward to surprising them with my inner Steve Backshall.
There's more to Merlin, too. It can be linked to eBird for logging your sightings including location, plus it can be linked to Swarovski Optik binoculars such as the AX Visio – new AI-powered binoculars that can identify up to 9,000 species.
Give it a few years and I'll be like my friend, out in a common with my mirrorless camera and Merlin app in hand, pinpointing the birds around me with wizard-like skills, hopefully levelling up my bird photography.
