Hi everyone, For those of you interested in an app that is focused on identifying birds, I encourage you to check out the Merlin Bird ID app that Holly mentioned. The goal of Merlin is to allow users to identify birds as quickly as possible. You could think of it as having your own expert birding coach ask you some questions (where are you, what size is the bird, what color) to help you narrow down the list of possible species you could be watching.
As is often the case with something that is this powerful and simple, there is a lot going on under the covers. I won't go into the details, which you can learn about on the links below. Instead, I'll say that I've used it a few hundred times in last month from NY to SC to CO to AZ and Merlin usually has my bird in the top two or three choices. It does seem to border on magic. If you are a beginning birder who is trying to find a way to ID birds in your backyard, Sapsucker Woods, or Stewart Park -- there really is no better tool to help you identify birds. Right now it includes 285 of the most widespread species in North America. It's free in the iTunes store (Android coming soon). Link to iTunes Store: http://bit.ly/MerlinApp Link to Project Website: http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ Chris Wood Ithaca, NY -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
