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iphone using merlin's sound id

App Reviews, Featured, Guides, Main Feed

Identify bird songs using your phone with Merlin

If you could take three things with you when you go birdwatching, what would they be? Binoculars, a camera, and a smartphone would be my answer. Over the past few years, new phone apps have enabled birders, both rookie and seasoned, to better identify and record what they see in the field. The Merlin App has led the way in offering a robust tool to identify unknown birds.

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Written by: Jeff Mann

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ruddy turnstone with merlin app in foreground

Guides

Identify birds with your phone camera

Birders these days have many tools at their disposal to help identify birds they see. Field guides, apps, other birders, and more. Today we will be focusing on an app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called Merlin. The Merlin app has an amazing new feature called Photo ID, which enables you to select a photo from your phone’s camera roll and it will attempt to identify it.

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Written by: Jeff Mann

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Birding Summary, Education, Featured

My first time recording birds with a shotgun microphone

Microphone. Power supply. Shock mount. Windscreen. Pistol grip. XLR cable. Headphones. Recorder. Bird. All of these things work together to capture a bird song. Following the Audubon’s Guide to Recording Bird Song, I scoured the internet to put together my own secondhand bird recording kit.

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Written by: Jeff Mann

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passenger pigeon illustration

Education, Featured, Main Feed

Passing on the History of the Passenger Pigeon

What if I told you that the there once was a population so vast and mighty that its members could block out the sun.

A combined power so great it could shape the continent. These creatures were not the dinosaurs of the Jurassic period or Roman soldiers two millennia past, but the Passenger Pigeon. A North American bird who’s extinction came just a hundred years ago.

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Written by: Jared Asser

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Birding Summary, Featured, Main Feed, Science

Counting Brown Pelicans with Audubon California

This past weekend brought many organized birding events to the city of Los Angeles. Audubon chapters from around LA coordinated the second annual Bird Day LA: a slew of bird/nature walks, photography classes, and a bar meet-up, all aimed to get the public excited about bird watching, nature, and conservation. Coincidentally, Audubon California decided to hold the first-ever Brown Pelican Survey on the same day. Due to my hectic school and work schedule, I decided to focus my time on attending this important bird count.

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Written by: Jeff Mann

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