App Review: Merlin Bird ID
I’ve heard that the first sign that you’re getting old is that everything starts to hurt for no apparent reason. And it seems that the second sign is a sudden fascination with birds.
To be fair, I’ve always been somewhat fascinated with birds—even long before I was officially old. I grew up in a house with a wooded backyard, and I loved watching the birds that visited our bird feeder. My daughter has inherited my fascination, too—and that’s why I open up my Merlin Bird ID app almost as often as some of my favorite walking apps.
If you tend to walk in parks and on wooded trails, you’ve probably wondered about the birds around you. Maybe you’ve spotted one in a tree lining your favorite trail—or you’ve heard an unfamiliar birdsong in the distance. The free Merlin app can easily identify both. If you’re interested in a particular bird, you can take a picture, upload it to the app, and find out what it is. Or, if you’re interested in the birds’ songs, you can record the sounds around you, and the app will list the birds it can identify by their songs.
Once you’ve identified your birds, you can also learn more about them. You can view pictures, hear examples of their calls, and study their migration patterns. So if you’re interested in studying the birds that travel through your area, the app offers plenty of learning opportunities.
Being the obsessive collector that I am, I also love that Merlin offers a way to keep track of the birds I’ve seen and/or heard. As far as I’ve seen, the app doesn’t automatically add birds that you’ve identified by bird calls, but it does offer a running tally of birds.
Thanks to these useful features—and just because it’s a great way to keep yourself entertained and engages while you’re walking—Merlin is a worthwhile app to add to your collection of walking apps. It may not track your steps or share your mileage with your walking buddies—but if you enjoy spending time in nature while walking, it’ll give you a fun—and educational—way to pass the time while during your daily walk.
Pros:
– Identifies birds by picture or by sound
– Allows you to save or delete recordings
– Provides additional information about different species of birds
Cons:
– Identified birds aren’t automatically added to your “life list”
