Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
June 14, 2024
More About Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
Merlin offers four fun ways to identify birds. Answer a few simple questions, upload a photo, record a singing bird, or explore birds in a region.
Whether you’re curious about a bird you’ve seen once or you’re hoping to identify every bird you can find, the answers are waiting for you with this free app from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
WHY YOU’LL LOVE MERLIN
• Expert ID tips, range maps, photos, and sounds help you learn about the birds you spot and build birding skills.
• Discover a new bird species each day with your own personalized Bird of the Day
• Get customized lists of birds you can find where you live or travel - anywhere in the world!
• Keep track of your sightings—build your personal list of the birds you find
MACHINE LEARNING MAGIC
• Powered by Visipedia, Merlin Sound ID and Photo ID uses machine learning to identify birds in photos and sounds. Merlin learns to recognize bird species based on training sets of millions of photos and sounds collected by birders at eBird.org, archived in the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
• Merlin delivers the most accurate results thanks to experienced birders, who curate and annotate sightings, photos, and sounds, who are the true magic behind Merlin.
AMAZING CONTENT
• Choose bird packs that contain photos, songs, and calls, and identification help for anywhere in the world, including Mexico, Costa Rica, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, Australia, Korea, Japan, China, and more.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s mission is to interpret and conserve the Earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds and nature. We are able to offer Merlin for free thanks to the generosity of Cornell Lab members, supporters, and citizen-science contributors.
Latest Version
3.1.1
June 14, 2024
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Education
Android
5,184,075
Free
com.labs.merlinbirdid.app
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User Reviews
Lisa Zielinski
11 months ago
Updated app is worse. Did no one test this before releasing the updated version? Old version always picked up way more birds than I could hear. Yesterday I was standing in forest at Grand Canyon. I heard a number of different birds. Merlin didn't hear any of them. Now my vacation is over and I lost my chance to add birds to my life list from a different region. Bummed me out. Please roll back the update!
Sally Work
1 year ago
I like the new look of the app. I can get to everything without having to scroll. I like that you can start a new recording on the same screen as the one you just did. The only thing I don't like is the delete function now being under the drop-down menu instead of the trash can icon being on the same screen as what you just recorded; just not as convenient (and it looks as though there could be enough room for it to still be located there). Some people will like the bird of the day, I guess...
Edie Rogers
11 months ago
This is a great app for beginners and expert birders. It helps to identify birds by their songs and calls and also provides information once you determine the species. Also can integrate wonderfully with Cornell's eBird app - which also is free. But perhaps the best thing about using the Cornell apps is that you are supporting their research!
eric geiger
11 months ago
Loved this App prior the latest update and would've given it 5 stars, but since the update, the microphone sensitivity seems reduced and the app misses at least half the birds that can be heard and now I have to save the recording every 5 mins or it times out and I lose the whole session. Deeply disappointed in the update, I feel like it is a step backwards.
BamaHeel
11 months ago
I've been using Merlin for about 3 years now. Usually pretty good at identifying most birds by appearance and sound. However it occasional does misidentify other noises. Several times it comes up with turkey when none within a mile. Also, the interface with eBird isn't very smooth. It would be more convenient if one could upload all the Merlin IDs from a session of bird watching all at once to eBird rather than plodding through one by one
Pantea Gol
11 months ago
I love this app; however, ever since the last update I've been having a lot of problems which actually led me to uninstall and reinstall where problems didn't go away anyways. After each sound ID, I have to 'Clear Cache's and 'Firce Stop' the app to be able to get the next sound ID. And can't get the region's dBASE downloaded either. SOS! Need help🙏
Sabrina Scott
1 year ago
I've been using merlin for a bit now, with ebird as well. I've haven't had any issues with it. I will say I like the new look, the biggest plus is being able to select bird from the explore list to say it's my bird now. It helps when I want to double check between two birds to ensure I saw the correct one and it'll take me right to ebird to input it into my current list without having to search.
Juli Thompson
1 year ago
Usually pretty good at identifying birds. Bird packs do take up a decent chunk of memory. Sound and photo ID functions are very handy. Searching for birds by name is a little clunky, though, which is really strange. My biggest annoyance is that if I see a bird I recognize, I can't just search for "blue jay" and record the sighting. I have to use one of the ID methods and click around till I convince the app to suggest blue jay. eBird is better for reporting known birds.
Anne Stockwell
11 months ago
Sometimes I go out in my back yard in the morning and turn on the sound ID feature just to see what's around. It's fun to see how many different bird calls register, and gives me a heads-up if there's anything unusual to look for. The step by step ID is what I use most, though, and it works well. Overall, a great app that I have recommended to many friends.
Cindy Kepler
11 months ago
It is so cool to find out what birds are in my area. I downloaded a bird pack with birds in my area and it shows me a picture of what they look like. I can do more research later on if I want to learn more about each bird and their habits along with different songs if I choose. I can't figure put how to use the camera part correctly to use that but listening to the birds works great and for the most part I can usually look at the birds to know which ones I am seeing.
Maddie J.
1 year ago
Obsessed with this app during my little backyard birding adventures. Pretty accurate at identifying birds-- I get so excited to see/hear "rare" or "uncommon" birds. I've made it my goal to collect them all :) I preferred the previous app design though-- everything feels a little bit smaller/ more sterile with the redesign. I wish the locations of where the Merlin recordings came from still appeared after using the sound ID. But! Still a great app.
Bryan Wells
11 months ago
This app rocks! Seems to be very accurate and very sensitive and able to distinguish between background noise and voices from bird songs. Would like a way to rapidly recall a list for a given location or day. The sounds are saved, but I don't want the sounds. The lifelist may cover this, but it is clunky to use. As soon as I start a new ID session, what I had up to that point disappears. I want a day list or trip list always shown.
Andrew Nilsen
11 months ago
EDIT: Derp - I found the widget by long pressing on the app icon. "Love this app! Unfortunately, with the new update it appears the widget for audio ID isn't available. Having the ability to start the mic with 1 tap, instead of going into the app, has proved valuable for me to get a recording before the bird flies away. It's also the only way my Grandma know how to use the app :(I hope this comes back"
Seth Baker
11 months ago
Haven't used it in a while, seems to be redesigned, which is ok with me but now I can't see how to listen to example songs of birds I look up. I've got my local pack installed. I used to enjoy looking up birds and playing their calls for my kids while looking at the picture and reading the blurb. My pack is three quarters of a gig, you'd think there'd be sound files in there. Anyway it's a great app but used to be better.
Wm. Josiah Erikson
11 months ago
Fantastic! No ads or gimmicks. Feels like an old school piece of open source software. And it identifies bird calls with remarkable accuracy, and fast. It's so much fun to just turn it on in your yard and watch it figure out all the birds it's hearing. And you can go back and listen to the parts of the sound that it identified as particular birds, and it gives you a spectrogram as well. And then you can look up all the information about said birds. It's basically the best.
Adammrtl27
11 months ago
This app was great. It worked great. No ads. Perfect. Lots of fun.. but that most recent update seems to have caused me some issues. Like it won't always save the birds I encounter. It has something to do with the location info that populates when I save a bird... I will try to take a screen cap next time it happens, if that helps...
Ellie Renehan
11 months ago
I love this app! I love looking at birds in my backyard and have tried a few bird ID apps and I prefer this one by far. It's super simple and easy to use and is usually accurate. The sound identifier can distinguish bird songs from background noise which is amazing. However, I do think an addition that could be added could be a place to identify fledglings? I think it would be very cool to find out what my neighborhood birds look like when they're young. But the app overall is amazing!
Kassie Harden
11 months ago
I do like the sound feature. When I record the birds I think this feature works well. What doesnt work as well is the photo. Getting a clear enough photo of a moving bird is difficult and it doesn't bring up the correct bird. Then the search features is completely unusable. You would think if you search "dove" it will bring up all the types of doves. Nope you need to type exactly what the bird is called. If I knew what it was called I wouldn't need the app. I still like the app so 4 stars.
Keeli B.
1 year ago
I have loved using this app. However, I dont find the new interface easy to navigate after the most recent update. This could be due to my phone (galaxy z fold 4); I just prefer the older interface. Half of the ID/recording button is blocked by another button and I am unable to scroll down on the opening screen. I can just click the top if I'm careful to start recording, but it's just irritating if Im trying to quickly identify birds, hit the wrong thing, hit back, and the entire app closes lol
Christopher Bell
11 months ago
Total waste of space. Before this new fancy redesign, this was an amazing app. It would hear all of the birds around me and identify them fairly accurately. Then they pushed the update. Now, I can stand in a forest surrounded by literally dozens of birds, and it tells me that there's not a single one within range. For some reason it completely doesn't pick up any of the high frequencies, it can't identify a single bird noise, and it says there are no bird when there definitely are..
