Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab App Reviews

Current upgrade: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 3.1 isn’t doing it for me. I’ve used it several times now and like it even less. Bird of the Day is an okay idea for beginners, but the image is huge and needs to be dismiss-able. It’s distracting. What I really need on the main page is a huge Record Button. Pre-recorded species calls and songs are now harder to access. I used to be be able to tap one of the top tabs and see a full list of sample songs and calls. Now, it’s tap-swipe, tap-swipe to see an incomplete list that requires more tapping. This is not an improvement. I used to be able to tap the Maps tab, then quickly swipe between species maps to compare ranges; now it’s just a pain. Finally, it’s still lacking the 4-letter alpha codes; so you have to laboriously type in the entire bird name to find your species of interest in the field (“yellow-throated…” is a lot to type on the fly, compared to “YT” as with eBird.) Type in “Bell’s” and you get zero results for Bell’s Vireo at the apostrophe. Sound ID is helpful but often wrong…I imagine that tech is a work in progress. But there is still no way to report that Merlin is making an incorrect ID (eg Merlin kept calling Osprey which was basically impossible at that waterless location, and the bird was actually a N Cardinal…but there is no way to provide specific corrective feedback.) Can I roll back to the previous excellent version??

One flaw. Great app. Really cool. Very helpful in identifying birds, but they don’t give all the options when you do “Start Bird Id.” For example, I saw a chukar on a mountain that is sort of in the middle of a city. They’re not super common there but they’re definitely there and so when I went through the identification process that wasn’t an option to choose from in the end. The only way to identify the bird in that specific location was to pick a location that I know where they are in abundance and then once I find it and click “This is my bird” then I change the location to where I actually saw it. This works fine in this instance because I’m familiar with the bird and it’s usual habitat but the next rare bird I find may not be listed and if I’m not familiar with it then I’ll never know what it was. My recommendation is to allow all birds in the pack that fit the descriptions show up on the list. Or at least make it a possible setting. If there is already a setting that can do that then someone please let me know. I know you can change that setting on the “Explore Birds” tab so why not make it a possibility on the “Start Bird Id” tab?

Sound Id is great, prompts for email are bad. I’ll start with what I love. The Sound ID is fantastic!! Through that feature alone I’ve ID’d many birds in my yard I didn’t know I had. It highlights the bird, plus back the sound it heard to ID it, and saves the recordings to listen back to which helps me learn the sounds. Now the part I don’t like is very annoying. I’ve been using this app for over a year and it keeps telling me my free trial has expired and I need to verify my email. I’ve done that, and I can even log onto my online Merlin account. But for some reason the app keeps popping up with this. I have figured out a couple work arounds but they don’t always work. First, I click the feature I want (sound ID) as soon as the app opens. If I wait even 3 seconds it won’t work. Second is if it pops up with the prompt I close the app and restart it. That is less likely to work but has worked about half the time. I would like to see a fix for this issue in an update. Love the features but stinks if you can’t even get to them for the prompt.

The best birding app you will ever use!. I have used this app for years now. This app offers several ways to identify an unknown bird you saw. The primary way to identify birds is sound ID. It identifies birds through your phones microphone. However, it can make mistakes. You should study the calls provided by the app, but not all calls you hear will be there. Sound ID can help you quite a bit in finding birds you cannot see. A rare bird may be listed by sound id, but it is probably an error. I had a red-winged blackbird call claimed to be an American Pipit. Sound ID is still very useful, just don't trust it all the time as it is just a suggestion. Photo ID is the best way to identify birds, and supports far more birds than sound ID. Photo ID is far more accurate. But getting a good photo of an elusive bird can be difficult. If you have no photos or sound ID recordings of the bird, you can use the apps traditional method that asks you basic information, such as the size, colors, and behavior of the bird you saw. While the method isn't the best method, it can help with getting an idea of what the bird you saw might be. The app contains thousands of photos and audio recordings to download in bird packs. Bird packs contain photos, ID information, sound recordings and a description of the bird. This app is still the best birding app out there!

I love this app. I started using this app a week ago, and it has been so much fun. It also has been good for me. I tend to be a go-go-go kind of person, but because I am so enjoying this app, I find myself slowing down more and taking a few minutes hear and there to go outside and see what birds are singing. The House Finch is my new favorite bird. If there is a bird singing a beautiful, happy song in my area, it is usually the House Finch. My husband encouraged me to take a break at the school where I work and eat my lunch outside just so I could tell him what birds are over there. There was a loud truck, but even over it, this app was able to identify the song of an Orange-crowned Warbler, which I had never heard/noticed before. It made my day and got me to stop thinking about work for a little bit. This app has become educational for me, but it is also like a wellness app as well. It makes me go outside and be still for little moments. When I do this, suddenly I become aware of a symphony of bird song around me. I am so grateful for this app.

It’s like real-life pokemon. We have a very prolific feeder on 8 acres that has sustained many generations of birds. When I tell you that this app is such a delight! We use both the step-by-step ID function as well as the sound identification, and they never miss the bird we’re trying to identify. It’s always so exciting to get a new bird added to your lifetime spotted list, akin to playing pokemon when I was a kid (and still as an adult if I’m being honest). The sound ID especially is a treat. My only suggestion for the developers would be to add 2 pieces of information in the lifer listings: the first of which specifies how you identified the bird – by photo ID, by sound, or by step-by-step ID – and the second of which has the symbol for how common the bird is in that area. Sometimes when looking through our list, I’ll find birds that I swear I’ve never seen in my life and I’m left to assume that I must’ve identified them by sound, which then leads me to wonder how rare it is to lay eyes on that particular bird. It’s not terribly consequential, but those are nice pieces of information to have :)

Easily learn about birds!. The magic of Merlin is how it quickly narrows down the most likely bird. Great for beginners. 5 basic multiple choice questions (where, when, size, main colors, and what was the bird doing) will give a short list of birds that almost always has the bird in front of you. Or use photo id if you are close enough to get a good picture. Sound id can identify multiple birds simultaneously and then you can listen to recordings of each to learn what song goes with which bird. Great pictures, descriptions, multiple sound recordings of each species and maps make it easy to learn all about each bird. All this info does make the bird pack file sizes rather large, but start with at least your regional bird pack and you will see how great it is. Add bird packs of other regions if you are traveling there. This app can quickly and easily open you up to the world of birds around you and get you smiling about adding another bird to your life list of all the birds you have identified.

Great free app.. This is a fun and easy to use bird ID app. Generally I know the birds in my area but I don’t know all their calls and some birds are similar. Once you’ve recorded and stop, you can click on the green arrows and there are examples of all their calls (though some alarm calls are missing). On a early spring morning when birds are chatty and finding mates, I’ve picked up 17 birds. However, I think two of them were really a Mockingbird imitating a Purple Martin and Kildeer on the shoreline and I hadn’t seen either. So, it’s good to listen to a Mockingbird’s own sounds and if a bird you haven’t seen comes up quickly with the Mockingbird, it may not be Merlin’s fault. It did pick up the sound of my door opening as a Loon but we don’t have any. When signing up, when you choose the pack it’s good to choose your area so there are less mistakes. The photo ID works pretty well so far. When you explore birds in the app, some birds say rare that really aren’t, e.g. Mergansers have become common in the winters here mostly in brackish waters. It’s possible that it might mix up juvenile hawks that all have white breasts with brown drippy markings. You can go to Cornell Lab’s website and learn how to recognize their differences, the length of their tail feathers being one way. It’s helpful and fun and surprisingly picks up bird sounds even when there’s traffic noise.

My favorite nature app. I absolutely love this app. I have been using it since it was developed and it has revolutionized birding. The original method works extremely well. Now inexperienced birders can also use voice ID to help them identify quick moving, tiny treetop birds and birds hiding in dense brush, which are difficult to see clearly. Learning to ID birds by ear is tough. While it isn’t perfect, it is right most of the time. Once in a while, the voice ID comes up with a head scratcher, but, as an experienced birder, I can almost always figure out what it heard that led to a mistaken ID. Usually the culprit is a distant alarm call or vague chirping that is very difficult to identify without being familiar with the habitat and the likely sounds there. The photo ID is excellent if the photo is excellent, but can be fooled by poor photo quality. My only criticism is that you really have to make sure you have the location set correctly, especially if you travel to different areas for birding. The location should be more prominently displayed so you don’t forget to change it.

Download for Loads of Birding Fun!. I started this app about a week and a half ago, and I’m loving it! I can identify any singing bird, and almost any picture of a bird! It identifies your description of a bird, too! You can also search for birds in your area, and play the calls. I’ve been able to play White Breasted Nuthatch, Cardinal, Robin, House Sparrow, House Finch, and Ruby-Throated Hummingbird sounds, and all with a reaction! The biggest reaction I got from a bird was a hummingbird, that was my first time playing the sounds. After a few times, she flew 2 feet away from my face! She looked really stunned, wondering what was going on. After a few seconds, she flew back to her perch in a tree and answered my call all the times after that. Just two problems. 1: When I was having fun with the app and trying to get a Mourning dove, no matter what I tried it wouldn’t give me it. 2: Sometimes there are sound bugs, which I completely understand. One time there was a sound in my house and it thought it was a Brown-Headed Cowbird. Anyway, I think I just heard a hummingbird’s mating call! Better go see them, Bye! Also, download this app for 100% guaranteed bird identification!

Best resource for the novice birder.. I’ve had this app for a few years now and just wanted to test it out. It’s probably not very helpful that I’m just now getting around to it. I was initially pretty disappointed at first because the number of species specific to Alaska was fairly limited. It took a little time, but they rolled out regional specific bird packs. It just blew up from there and became my go-to app for identifying birds. The photo ID feature is pretty great, but limited only by the quality of my phone camera. It’s usually pretty accurate though. I’ve just gotten way more interested in birds I really didn’t pay attention to before! The app is great and if you enjoy birds of all sizes in your area, chances are this app will be instrumental in identifying them. I think I use it more than any other app I have. Oh yeah, I also really love the bird sounds feature. This is also very useful when you can’t necessarily see the bird, but you might have a close idea of what it could be. Do check it out, this is well put together app overall. I wonder if they’ll have a feature where you could identify simply by recording a song or a call? I’m excited for any new developments in the future!

Pretty good overall. It’s pretty good! Very helpful, but could be better. I shouldn’t have to drag the map every time I want to enter a bird I see in my backyard. It should default to my home or have a list of locations we can save and choose from instead of having random “this is where we think you saw it” on a map that is nowhere near my location. I’ve already saved my home as a place so why can’t it default? Weird. There should also be a function for me to enter the bird I see instead of going through all the IDing steps, it gets tedious and I can only imagine with the backyard bird count how less than pleasant tracking everything in the app will be. I’m happy to do so, but I feel like it’ll take a lot longer than necessary. We all know what juncos and scrub jays look like, we should be able to enter the birds we’re familiar with without ten steps of questions first. But! Glad this app exists, I’m by no means a bird expert, just a backyard bird enthusiast. Just wish it was a little more streamlined.

Amazing tool, but a few minuscule issues. This app is amazing. I use it every time I go bird watching, and it is far more efficient than most of the manuals I own. However, it is not without its minor faults. The first and most blaring is the fact that Isee many birds with many more than only 3 colors, and when I see birds with only 3 or less colors they might be different colors than I have the options I have to pick from! I understand that there are limitations that make it difficult, but the app would be that closer to perfect if you added more colors and the option to pick more than three colors. The other issue is that on a very slim chance I cant find the bird im looking for! This is for the most part my fault, but I think that sometimes it is because the bird isn’t on the list of birds registered on the app. It could also be because of the pictures of the birds do not include all or most variations of the bird I see, so I cannot confirm my sighting. If the roster of birds was filled up more, and there was more pictures, then all of those problems would be solved! It is such a great app with such great features and it almost never fails me. The only issues it has are so minor, or could be fixed in an update soon, that it makes them nearly irrelevant. Because of all of this the app is virtually perfect, and i recommend all bird watchers newbies and veterans alike to download this app.

Still My Go-To!. Merlin has always been the first ID app I open and the sound ID is absolutely indispensable. While I’m now able to bird by ear, I like the extra help with uncommon migrants that pop in for a few days each year. It’s also nice to have Merlin back up my IDs on lifers or when I submit rarities. With that said, it’s not infallible so some common sense needs to be used: if it’s telling you you’re hearing a bird that’s wildly out of range, it’s probably wrong. I don’t trust it unless it IDs the same species in two different recordings. But I absolutely recommend this app to birders off all skill levels. [Previous Review circa 2015] I've been using Merlin for almost a year and I love it. It has almost never failed to give me the correct ID. I have some of the expensive birding apps and Merlin outshines them. The search returns the birds that are most likely based on eBird data, so you don't get hypothetical birds that you'll never see. I really appreciate the fact that Merlin recognizes both male and female field marks because so many apps focus only on the male. I highly recommend this app to anyone who needs to ID birds--beginner or expert.

AUDIO ID Review - Better & Better. I’ve been using Audio ID every time I bird and most times I go for a walk. Many times Merlin surprises me by identifying a species would not have expected. Two examples last week: 11:00 am I’m sitting on a 4th floor patio near several twenty story apartment buildings and I hear a Peregrine Falcon alarm cry. I look straight up and see an adult and a juvenile the latter beginning food clutched in its parent’s talons. Same day, 9 pm, I was walking a dog in the streets near UCLA campus and suddenly Merlin heard 2 Great Horned Owls faintly calling. I frequently visit a salt pan near Ballona Creek where there are 15-20 shorebird species including plovers, sandpipers, curlews, various terns and waders. Merlin is preforming much better in these cacophonous and multi species situations sorting species near and far usefully quickly when many are passing in flight. Final observation, sub species that are almost impossible to ID without audio like Belting's Sparrow, California Gnatcatcher and Ridgeways Light Foot Rail are reliable in known locations! I am grateful for Merlin’s hearing improving as mine (71 yrs) is deteriorating! BRAVO MERLIN

Great for a beginner like me. I love birds and want to learn more about them. I have been hesitant to join birdwatchers as I’ve heard via birder email lists the experienced birders can be impatient and critical of newbies and also make it hard for newbies to join any groups. It’s like breaking into a click. That said, I felt I needed to learn before I even got started so I tried Merlin ID. I have used all 3 tools and find each one useful. I’m most excited about the sound ID though. This app is not perfect and you should question a match that seems questionable, like if it gives you a “rare” match. Do some research by listening to the call options to see if the match is authentic. This app also doesn’t recognize every bird. But, when there isn’t a match just submit the recording to Merlin so they can further improve the app. It is constantly improving and can only do that if we all help out. One day, I heard a bird but couldn’t see it. The sound tool identified the bird so then I knew what to look for and sure enough, I was able to visually identify said bird! I was super excited and encouraged. I also enjoy reading about each bird, the various photos and learning the different calls and songs. I’ve begun to share this with my daughter and grandkids when we take walks. My grandson lights up when he is able to see photos of the birds he is hearing and he’s only 2.5. Fun for the whole family!

Love it!!!🦅🕊🦉🐦. This app is really cool, and I think it will be helpful! I haven’t really gotten a chance to try it out much but I live in Iowa and I am going on a camping trip near the Canadian border in Minnesota soon and can’t wait to try it out. I’ve been browsing through the stuff and testing the app out, like trying to get the app to think of European starling, And a while ago I think I saw a great egret but I wasn’t exactly sure, I tried to look on here but it wasn’t able to show me it might have been how I was trying to identify it and where I put the marker I don’t exactly know where saw it. Something I would like to see added to the app is skipping a category, like the location or the date because sometimes you don’t exactly know when you saw the bird, or where it was, just an option to skip would be nice. otherwise I absolutely love this app! I like how you can listen to the birds sounds, and just browse through bird categories! Another fun option to the app would be to interact with other burgers and share what you have seen!🦆! I will definitely be recommending it to my bird friends! thanks!!!😁

Outstanding app very easy to use, intuitive! Thank you Cornell!. This is an outstanding app! I rank this app #1 for information, ease-of-use, intuitiveness, fun! When I see a new bird, I can quickly identify it by typing just it’s color before it flies away! I’ve identify birds, my there song. The app is so sensitive. I didn’t even realize how many other birds were in the area and it told me their names too. Then, I can play their song back to them because there are hundreds of pre-recorded songs available on the app. If I want to test my knowledge up, Orthology, I can listen to songs and try again if I the birds myself. Due to the rise of rocks and predatory birds in my area, the app helps me to log the birds are in my backyard. I was using Cornell’s website then they switched to this app. Since developing the app, they’re having constant improvement. Thank you Cornell. I’ve had many many surgeries due to two car accidents. Watching my birds brings me such joy. This app makes it even better. I donate monthly to Cornell to save the birds and contribute to their research.

Loads of fun. Let me begin by stating I never use the original function of describing the bird I see. If I can see it that we’ll, chances are I can identify it without Merlin. The same goes with the photo ID feature—if I can get close enough and get a good enough look , I can ID the bird as well as Merlin can. I have tested out the photo ID, and I believe it would be a useful tool for beginners. Be aware that it’s not perfect: it has just as hard a time distinguishing between sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks as I do. Where the app really shines is in the sound ID. At first I was a little skeptical. One of the first times I used it it thought that one bird was both a common raven and an American crow. Same thing with some gulls. It thought there was both a California and Herring gull. I eventually found one I could call a California, the Herring gull never materialized. It also thought there was a tundra swan, but upon reviewing the recording, there was nothing there, and definitely no swan within my sight. The more I have used it, however, the more confident I become in its ID power. Generally, if Merlin disagrees with what I thought the sound was, I’ll try to track it down and find it. And more often than not, I find what Merlin told me was there. But the most fun I have had with this app was watching a northern mockingbird singing while Merlin picked out thirteen different bird songs that one mockingbird had learned and incorporated into its repertoire.

Great, but could be smoother and quicker for sound identification. This app has helped me learn and pay attention to sound qualities I didn’t used to discern, vastly increasing the accuracy of my birding by ear. My most frequent frustration is when I lose the chance to record an infrequent sound, because it can take so many clicks and scrolls to get to the Start new recording activator. I wish as soon as I open the screen, no matter whether I last looked at data for a bird with twenty song and call variations, or if there was no match, or if there were 8 species heard, that I could see and touch the Record function in one step. Instead, the passing bird is gone out of range too often, or stopped calling or singing. My second frustration is that there’s no quick way (at least that I have found) to delete a recording in which the target wasn’t registered. I wish there was a Delete last recording button right on the screen with the No match report, and also on ones where a plane or truck noise took over the recording. All that said, I often recommend this app to birders who haven’t tried it yet. Thanks

Wish this and Audubon would mix. For the most part I like this app (though I’m not a fan of the new update that makes it so you can’t search all birds, but only by areas), but I wish it and the Audubon app would combine to have the best of both. Merlin has picture and sound ID, which is great. Audubon makes it easy to see if there have been any reported sightings in your area of a specific bird or just the general sightings. With Audubon you can also search birds easier and add one if you already know what it is, where Merlin makes that difficult. Just this morning, I saw a blue jay (which aren’t really supposed to be in my area, but have been for the last few years) and Merlin wouldn’t give it as a possibility (only giving stellers jays which are actually supposed to be here) but I couldn’t mark it as seen in this app because it wouldn’t give me blue jay as a possible bird, and I couldn’t just add it like in Audubon. You also can’t edit your sightings in this app, so make sure you get your date, location and bird right or it’ll be stuck incorrect in your sightings forever.

Take it with a grain of salt. Overall great app. Being able to see your life list with actual birds is incredible! However, there are some fatal flaws. For one, the filters for the likelihood of species is bar chart correlated and not expert review, so it often displays strange and outright incorrect results. Secondly, and more importantly, is that it’s creating new birders that rely too heavily on the sound and photo ID features. The old method of hearing a bird and then finding it enough times until you recognize it just by ear has become obsolete. This is ok if Merlin was more accurate than a typical birder but it absolutely is not. I’ve tested merlin in mountain terrain and it has gotten about 90% correct species… and then it said water rail… on a glacier… in Montana. Additionally, it is terrible at picking up more distant or obscure calls. Thus it either doesn’t give you a result or a flawed one. So take all results with an incredibly large grain of salt. I tend to shoo people away from this feature even if that comes at the cost of a few less lifers on their end. For me, it’s the quality of scientific data that trumps all.

Excellent app. This app works very well, and has helped me learn bird calls. The ability to easily look at various pictures of one species helps a lot too, many ID books are lacking in providing images of basic/alternate plumage, male/female/juvenal birds, and various levels of feather wear, but this app usually has plenty of pictures to find examples of most conditions in which you would commonly find a bird. On issue I have is that the MacOS version window cannot be adjusted for size, I would really like to be able to extend the window vertically to be able to see more birds at once, this would greatly improve the app for a sort of passive learning of bird calls, and a feature where you couuld put several species into a quiz to allow yourself to try and improve identification between several tricky similar birds would be extremely helpful (I would gladly fork over 5-10$ for such a feature) for ID. The interfacing with EBird is also a really awesome feature.

Useful with a major flaw. The app is overall quite useful for identifying birds and the audio references are great. What needs to change is your ability to add birds to your life list. There are times when I spot a bird, and I already know what bird it is, and I get excited to add it to my life list which is a great feature to have, but I *can’t*, which is super frustrating. You *have* to use the bird identifier to add a bird to your list, and there are times when I can’t for the life of me figure out what combination of answers I’m supposed to give the identifier to get it to suggest the bird I’ve already identified, so I just can’t add it. Then I search by name and there’s my bird, but no way to report my sighting. How crazy is that? Today it was a group of 6 cedar waxwings in the tree outside my window. I tried every combination of brown, gray, white, and even yellow and black with sizes of robin sized between a robin and a sparrow, and I never could get it to suggest waxwing, so it will not go on my list. This has happened multiple times now and at this point I’m going to give up on my life list because it defeats the purpose to not be able to track all my sightings.

Awesome bird Id app!. I totally love this app and the way it helps you identify all kinds of birds from your backyard or anywhere else! One thing is that it asked me to put in my email, which is fine, but five days later it said my grace period was over and that I had to send a confirmation email. It said that it had sent the email, but I hadn’t received any. This may be because I have a school district account, in which case it is not that apps fault, though a little more troubleshooting options would be nice. My mom and I are completely hooked and this is the perfect bird id app. Thanks Merlin! An update: Still very wonderful, super helpful no matter where you are, excellent bird ID app. One suggestion for people considering downloading Merlin: first off, you definitely should; second off, it might ask if it can send you notifications or something when you are logging in. Don’t. The amount of EMAILS I get from Cornell Labs of Ornithology is just annoying. I can’t figure out how to turn it off. Save yourself! (Still love Merlin so much, best app for beginner or advanced birders)

Even better as the years go by. I’ve been a user of this app for long enough that I can’t remember when exactly I started using it. I’m not an advanced birder and I like to pack as light as possible when I go birding or hiking so it comes in handy. I mostly used the step-by-step ID in the early days, but as my interest in attentively listening to and photographing birds has grown, I find myself using the sound and photo ID features more. They’re excellent! I especially love to use this app when visiting my family in Oaxaca, Mexico or my fiancé’s family on O’ahu and Hawai’i Island, despite sound ID being less reliable there (though I’m pleased that the app is up front about this, and when the singing birds are in sight I’ve even wondered if I could contribute identification to the recordings rather than just the other way around). The latest UI update streamlines the IA in a way that’s intuitive to my interests, and at the top of my priorities is the Life List! I really appreciate the fact that I don’t have to go through the ID process to mark a bird as a lifer anymore (a year or two ago when that wasn’t possible I was agonizing over not being able to get the step-by-step ID to show me Bald Eagles). Merlin Bird ID is an amazing app and invaluable asset to me as a bird enthusiast, I really appreciate all the work that goes into it!!

It opens up a new world!. Visiting a reserve this app lit up like a pinball machine when you've hit the jackpot! Showing my age? The only comment for improvement I have Is to be able to save the identifiable birds if you're unable to have an Internet connection. I am often out and about in the mountains without a cell connection and the only Internet connection I have is within 20 feet of the lodge where I'm staying. When I get out into the woods and my list is lighting up like a Christmas tree. I'm unable to do anything about saving, the identified species due to he absence of an Internet connection. Hopefully the designers are young and energetic, and they can figure out a way to remotely save the species. It would be fantastic if I was able to where to push the save button and retain the identifiable species so that I can log them later when I get back to the lodge. An option would be to have the choice to save them to the "same location" and that way you can just add them to the location where you registered hearing the last bird OR click "different location" and you are able to type in a location.

Nothing Short of Amazing. The speed and sensitivity of the Sound ID function is startling. It appears to be able to process several birds at nearly the same time. I can’t speak to it’s accuracy yet, because I haven’t had that many opportunities to visually confirm the sound IDs. But even if accuracy is only ok (and I suspect it’s much, much better than that), the app has already been invaluable to me as a novice birder. It has sped up my learning tremendously. Hearing the actual call as the app gives the bird’s name, and then seeing pictures of that type of bird on the app - this is exactly what I need to build those associations in my memory. And then being able to read a bit about it’s behavior and listen to the variety of its calls and songs provides context, and hones in on consistencies and variations of that bird’s call. Watching the app sort out the calls of over half a dozen birds as they call and respond in the morning, again and again, is really helping me learn how to tell them apart and name them. I’ve taken two birding classes and I use two different field guides, but none of those have helped me learn birds as much as this app. This is exactly what I needed!

New Love. I have enjoyed Merlin for several years now. I love the wealth of bird knowledge at my fingertips that Merlin provides. I also enjoy keeping my life list and adding to it when I see and can identify a new bird for my list. But recently my pleasure in using Merlin has reached a new high for two reasons. First, I got a new phone with a better camera that has allowed me to identify some birds that I have seen and heard but not been able to photograph before. Secondly, I have spent time with both of my grandchildren lately, a six year old girl and a nine year old boy, and have introduced both of them to the app and to the idea of a life list. They are both very interested and I have loved getting to share Merlin and my love for birds with them! The boy spent time on my back porch recording bird sounds yesterday. He didn’t want to turn it off! He kept waiting to hear one more. We heard ten different birds in 20 minutes. And he is already learning to identify birds by their song. Thank you, Merlin!!

Great for North America, a bust for Australia. The only thing I use Merlin for is sound recognition. It's almost miraculous how accurate it's been for me in North America, even for birds at a considerable distance. On a 10-week stay in eastern Australia, I downloaded the southeastern Australia package, which isn't trivial in size at >400MB. To my dismay, it didn't identify a single birdsong there, not even what turned out to be common species singing very close to where I was standing. Apparently the Merlin Australian packages are all about identifying birds by appearance, but in the dense forests and shrublands there, birds are far more often heard than seen. When I can see birds, I don't want to be looking at my phone scrolling through the choices. I take a photo or memorize as many details as I can and then use the excellent Australian Bird Guide (Menkhorst et al., 2023) book when I get back to my vehicle. The failure to identify any birdsongs was a disappointment. Without bird sound recognition I had no use for the Merlin southeastern Australian package and deleted it.

Best free birding app. This app got me started with birding. Last spring, I downloaded it to start identifying the common birds around me like American Robins, European Starlings, Common Grackles, and Northern Mockingbirds. Soon, I moved from merely identifying birds to counting them also, and soon after, I started recording full checklists with the EBird app (I think also a product of the Cornell School of Ornithology?), which is the best solution for those who wish this app would record their sightings. Now, less than a year later, I have 150 species on my list and have found a new lifelong hobby that I expect to bring me joy for decades to come. It’s all thanks to Merlin! Though I eventually found that a high quality illustrated field guide (I use Sibleys in the US and Collins in Europe) is more useful than any app, I still reference Merlin for sounds or any time I don’t have my guide on me. I was very excited when Merlin came out with bird packs for Europe right before I traveled to Greece this past fall, and I look forward to seeing more bird packs coming out for other parts of the world as time goes on. It’s fun to scroll through the foreign packs and dream about traveling to new places and seeing those birds. I’d glad that when I do go, I’ll have Merlin with me to help identify them!

Wholesome fun!. Let's be honest, I don't do reviews unless something is that awful or that great! Luckily it's the latter! Incredibly functional (and fun) features! Moved into the mountains and put up a window feeder. When I started seeing some cool looking birds I looked them up on Google, quickly found the app to ID them and I was sold! It's amazing at giving you the correct bird result. And don't even get me started on the sound ID! Omg we heard the weirdest freaking sound one night, I opened it up.. Instantly popped up whip-poor-will! And the sound ID is also an incredibly satisfying tool when you're somewhere where several kinds of birds are. My 2 year old begs me to open it so she can see the picture of the bird when it catches it's calls and it lights up with 5-7 different ones! And for the technically interested it will pinpoint which bird is making which call! I'm not a bird watcher.. just a nature lover and I have a whole new appreciation and curiosity for birds!

Peregrine Falcon. I observed the many peregrine falcons that the city brought to do away with reduce the pigeon population in fact what they reduced is migrating birds given they were exhausted from their long flights. The falcons had their nest in one tall building and in an adjacent building they ate their catch leaving bones spread over the entire roof point is the eight and left bones in a distinctly different area than where they nested and where they perched to hunt. My corner office had a ledge right outside my window where they would stand and when they saw an animal below them a bird below them they would dive at a speed that looked unreal. It was so fast they have special eye coverings when they’re diving reduce in affect of the wind on their eyes there are particular ravenous birds and can hunt often most of the day did janitors in the building where they left their bones had to go up and eliminate the bones at least once every three months they were so numerous shows they don’t exist in Chicago but indeed they exist in distinct enough so that a bird watcher could observe them they were brought in specifically to eliminate our large pigeon flocks but that failed miserably. The pigeon built like a bowling ball could make dramatically quick reversal of motion turns and it’s very hard for falcon Tom White

Amazing App for easy Bird ID. This app is wonderful! I knew next to nothing about birds until a Eastern Goldfinch landed in my bird bath one day spurring interest into exactly what the name of this beautiful bird was. I searched inline but characteristics I described didn’t help me find what I was looking for so I checked in the App Store for a bird identification app finding many games but only a couple of identification apps I downloaded 3 but found this to be the best for me. Since then I have become an avid bird watcher! The app is easy to use even for me. I was disabled by a drunk driver in 05’ & fed up with tv so great to find a hobby I can enjoy outdoors. Even my parents joined in & my daddy after suffering a head injury himself in 2011 took up the hobby along with wood working. Together we would make feeders & houses to help attract more birds. He would build & I would paint different types of houses I researched on the website to help attract birds of all types. Unfortunately We lost him to cancer in February of this year (2018) but the time we spent birding together these past 7 years is something I’ll always hold near & dear to my heart. Thanks so much to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Birds in the Hand, & the developers of the Merlin Bird ID for providing us with this wonderful app that has given me some very sweet memories & a wonderful hobby.

I really like this app. I am a beginning bird watcher since moving to the country and it’s helped me to identify species that I just don’t see in the city, like the acorn woodpecker, the California scrub jay and even the turkey vulture. The only disadvantage is that one must be very specific about where the birds are seen. If you have a birdbath and you put in “swimming or bathing “ the search will yield mostly aquatic species and you probably won’t find what you are looking for. Best to put in “on a tree or fence “ unless you are at a lake or something, and you know that it’s an aquatic species. Just FYI. Use the companion app eBird to report and record your results. It’s got a link to Merlin so you can search as you’re out birding or just on a hike somewhere. Birds are so cute even though they can be dicks like raiding other birds nests and stuff (something I’ve seen and it’s quite upsetting). But it’s nature! It’s not really kind. I don’t see nearly as many starlings as I did in the city which is gratifying. In case y’all don’t know they’re an invasive species that should be removed with extreme prejudice wherever they are found in America. Anyway, thanks for putting the app out to the general public! Love it!

Email confirmation issues. This is a great app however, it’s has issues with email confirmation. I downloaded the app and when you make an account you are required to confirm you email and you are given a 5 day grace period to do so. The app reminded me to confirm my email address when I went to use and so I did, a few times actually, since the app reminded me a couple more times after I did it the first time. Looking back I should have known something was wrong when I was stopped by the app more than once to confirm my email but I didn’t think anything of it until I began to have issues. At the end of the grace period I opened the app and was met with a message saying “your 5 day grace period is over. You must confirm your email to continue. Please check your email.” So I did, and there was no email. I hit the send again button multiple times and have even tried re-entering my email address to see if that would solve my problem. I also deleted and reinstalled the app and I am still without a email from Merlin and without access to the app. I don’t know what can be done at this point. when I heard about this app I was very excited to use it but I probably will never be able to use Merlin since they are clearly having some issues which is not allowing me to use it.

Sound ID is a powerful tool, unfortunately it sometimes crashes. As other reviewers have said, the sound ID function is quite amazing and justifies using this otherwise mediocre birding app. Merlin can easily identify a dozen different species all singing in a dawn chorus, occasionally identifying a bird that I didn’t even hear myself. For example, the other morning Merlin identified a brown thrasher, which surprised me because I had neither seen nor heard any, but by tapping the bird’s name on the playback screen, Merlin played back the part of the recording that had the thrasher singing, and I was able to confirm for myself that it was a correct identification by then playing the pre-recorded calls in Merlin’s library (I’ve never had Merlin mis-identify a bird call, but I still listen to double check when I’m not sure) My only complaint is that the app inexplicably and unpredictably locks up, apparently in some kind of infinite loop because my phone will overheat when this happens, and it’s difficult to get the task manager up to terminate Merlin. Restarting the app always fixes the problem, and it only happens occasionally, but nonetheless I’m docking 1 star until this is fixed.

Great app!. The app has definitely improved over the years. As with any app like this, it is important to confirm by listening to what was recorded and comparing to matches while also excluding other noises. My one wish for this app is that there would be an option to save or discard or something like that once you hit stop recording. If you amass a lot of recordings, it takes up a lot of space and you have to scroll to the bottom of the list to delete, since every recording is saved. Along the same theme - it would be awesome to identify some common non-bird species that sound like birds. It would also be great to be able to save specific clips in the app without having to export and edit. Being able to create one’s own library from identified bird clips would be awesome. Although I can appreciate that the app is more about identification, these features would improve the user experience. Great app! Looking forward to seeing how it develops in the future! Thank you!

Great app w/ a couple bugs. Different people have recommended this app to me, and I’m glad I finally got it! I’ve been learning about local birds for years now; the app is pretty easy to navigate, but I’m not sure how it would feel if I was brand new to birding. My favorite part has been adding birds to my life list and having access to many different bird calls. If you want to be able to identify birds by their sounds, this is a great place to start. My only frustration has been that it doesn’t always suggest the bird that you’re looking for after putting in the criteria. I sometimes have to go back and adjust the size of the bird or where I saw it in order for it to come up. This has happened mostly with scrub jays and acorn woodpeckers. I’m also not sure why it won’t let me add condors to my list. I’ve seen them several times soaring over southern California mountains but the app doesn’t generate the bird when I put in the criteria. Overall, I’ve definitely enjoyed using the app!

Discovery. This app has made me more aware of the life surrounding me. Listening to the calls of birds I want to see has helped me become more attuned to what's around me and where to look for the birds around my feeders and whose calls might've been previously lost to my undiscerning ears. I've downloaded this app, and it's opened up a new world to me that I previously ignored. I am now excited to be a part of it and connect with and through it. I've even started traveling to new places in my area to see and hear birds I've previously missed. Driving down the highway has become exciting as I witness hawks and other large birds soaring during longer drives. Sometimes, I even pull over and pull out my new binoculars for a closer look. Without this app, I'm not sure I would have had the same access to or ease into the birding world, which has always seemed foreign to me. For this, I am forever grateful, and the birds at my feeders can say so, too!

Fails on me frequently, otherwise would be great. I’m shocked this app still has 5 stars overall. I’ve used Merlin Bird ID for years and it really simplified the identification process. When I first started using it there was only a limited database and it was still being expanded so I was very forgiving when I bumped into its limitations. At this point though, I just get annoyed and mad that I can’t ID the birds I’m spotting. The app doesn’t let you ID birds it doesn’t believe are in your area, and it also doesn’t let you manually ID birds by name in the event the search doesn’t bring up your bird. For example, in Southern California I had a Red Shouldered Hawk in my neighborhood for several weeks. I thought it was very strange because they’re not normally in the area and I double, triple and quadruple checked the bird with various apps and field references listening to his call and markings to make sure it wasn’t the standard Red-Tailed Hawk. I wanted to ID the bird in Merlin to help the database and other birders but the app wouldn’t let me. Once again, this time in Maine, I’m staring at an Indigo Bunting (rare) eating at a feeder. Even with the regional packs downloaded Merlin won’t let me ID the bird. Very disappointing.

Adore it but some problems. I have been using Merlin since I started birding a couple years ago and I absolutely love it! My only complaint is that after one of the updates some of the bird profiles are not showing up for me. By that I mean when I click on it the bird the app refuses to show me the pictures that go along for ID so when I want to ID a bird that I know is a warbler in fall plumage I don’t have a reference and it can be really frustrating. Apart from that I love the set up and bird packs. One suggestion I might have for the bird ID is to maybe give an option to specify if you knew it was a waterfowl or not because or something along those lines because guesstimating what will make the app understand you can be a bit difficult especially when you see the bird from a distance. And lastly just a funny story I guess. I was in my back yard using the sound ID and it claimed there was a trumpeter swan in my area (which let me tell you there are not) I go back to play the recording and lo and behold the app interpreted a car horn as a trumpeter swan 😂.

Always peaceful and calming to use this app. Merlin bird id has not only helped me identify birds but has also helped me bring comfort and calmness to my mornings without me even intending to. I downloaded this out of sheer boredom and I now have such gratitude and admiration for all that worked to create this app and help others easily learn about birds. I feel more connected with nature now that I’m able to hear a bird and know exactly what it is. I know this review seems a little much but for a long time I had no interest in doing anything and this along with some other things was the start to my appreciation of the earth and nature which has seriously helped bring me out of a deep darkness and I sincerely thank the creators of this app. I hope that children will use this and be educated with the importance of birds and how they improve our ecosystem so that maybe they won’t be as destructive as we are now. I believe the ignorance of the role wildlife and how it benefits us contributes a lot to its destruction. Anyways have a good day and thank you for reading :)

Love this app. Merlin may be my favorite app of all. While not fool proof, it has provided me a way to improve my weakest area in birding, song recognition, while helping me identify those birds I’m unfamiliar with; using this app has improved my knowledge of bird songs and the number that I can recognize on my own. It has been a great addition to my collection of birding apps. I would, however, like to see improvement in song identification for the Hawaiian islands. We go there every two or three years, and many of the songs remain new and unfamiliar. However, when I open Merlin, I am told that Merlin needs additional data for that geographic area. There seems to be a very low number of satisfactory results when I’m birding there. It is surprising that there are better results in Spain, Italy, and Cyprus. Keep up the good work. This is a valuable app for both identification and education. I hope that we will be able to continue to have new bird packs, and that new data will continue to be submitted so that the songs of new species from around the world can be added.

Algorithm problem. It has come to my attention that the algorithm used to show likely birds in a region is flawed. The algorithm occasionally causes rare birds to appear common at certain hotspots. My guess to how this happens is likely due to the birding community discovering a rare bird and sharing that info with their community. Then people from all over show up and enter the bird into eBird. This causes a large number of people to report the same single bird. As a result the algorithm will occasionally tell you birds like a scissor-tailed flycatcher is common at Arcadia Marsh, MI. When as far as I can tell it was only seen on one day by many people. Or it could tell you that a lazuli bunting or a painted bunting are common at Whitefish Point, MI when in fact there are very few historic reporting a of either of those birds statewide. An improvement could be made by changing the algorithm to factor in the number of birds reported per checklist for example (10 trumpeter swans) along with the number of days the bird has been seen over a period of time. This would prevent anomalous inaccurate results for a single bird that was seen up to hundreds of times on only 1 day. Aside from that the app is excellent at what it was made to do. As a predictive tool of what birds you may find in a given region, extra research is required to double check Merlin’s findings.

Sound ID has been amazing. I kinda rolled my eyes when this feature was added, expecting it to be wildly inaccurate. This has not been the case. I’m blown away by how well it’s worked. I’ve been able, on several occasions, to actually call birds in using the provided, documented recordings to get a better look and confirm the ID. I would give this a 4.5 if possible. My only complaint is something I believe can and will be fixed in the future. When using sound ID, after the app has offered a suggestion, it would be great if you could tap on and link directly to that bird for specific identification. Right now, you basically have to back out and start the traditional ID process from scratch when you already know what bird you’re looking at. On occasion, you’re not lead to the bird you are already certain you’ve seen and heard. A quick link between the sound ID and the actual individual species page where you can confirm “this is my bird!” would be an amazing improvement. In general, thank you for an amazing app!

Thom. My big concern is that the location using gps? I get around Maryland. My back yard over 25 years ago was enrolled in a Maryland wild acres program. I have 2/3 of an acre and an even wilder area that is a right of way for a utility easement. My wife and I gardened for wildlife and we more into encouraging birds and animals than a groomed lawn. All kinds of birds come here. We have a hawk always around and a couple of owls that seem to like our hundred d foot white pines! Anyhow, the GPS ID puzzle me as often it is way off. While trying to use the id description I was trying to report a common house finch and first the location was put up as somewhere in Kansas. When I reset it it picked Silver Lake in Florida. I am very puzzled about what I do to defeat the GPS. Eventually I got it straight but if I did not pay attention to location I would be all over the place!! By the way, I mostly have very common birds on our yard, but yesterday was awesome as we had a light snow. About 3 inches and the robins came back in large numbers. They were in a pin oak and would fly to our dawn redwood and then to our privet stand loaded with berries! They and the hordes of starlings were loving life. What an all day event.

Simply the best app ever. I have never found an app that is this useful in my life! My only complaint is that I now have a half dozen bird books that have been rendered superfluous. I especially like the sound ID feature, which obviously is not a possibility with books. Thus far I have found it to be accurate and strong enough to pick up even distant calls. Another great feature is the list of likely birds based on date and location. One question I have regarding the bird packs: Why is the Midwest pack nearly five times as data intensive as the pack for the entire US? I’m only now beginning to compile my life list, and this feature too looks to be very useful. I’m a baby boomer who was a late adopter of cell technology, and I must admit, this app convinces me of the potential value. I recently identified a song I’d been hearing for years, a black-capped chickadee. I was long familiar with most of its sounds, but I never knew that the mournful, two note descending song was also part of its repertoire! Terrific, thanks so much.

Changed my life. Seriously.. This app opened my eyes to the world around me. I was never into birds before. I started using it after moving to a more wooded neighborhood in Nashville because I’d never heard so many birds and just wanted to see what was making all these sounds. I was shocked at the numbers of birds around me that I’d never taken the time to see or hear. Thanks to Merlin, I can now identify at least 20 birds by their songs and calls alone and I never knew how happy that would make me. More importantly, and totally unexpectedly, it helped me develop a daily mindfulness routine that was missing in my life before. I have a high stress job in healthcare. Merlin taught me to completely quiet my mind before and after work by being still, listening, and watching. I’d gotten so bogged down by life and stress that many of the little joys and wonders around me had become invisible. That’s no longer the case. Merlin has enriched my life and contributed to my well being and health in a way that sounds incredibly corny and fluffy to describe but it’s absolutely true. Now I’m proudly that weirdo who stops in the parking lot, looks up, and says “there’s a red shouldered hawk somewhere around here.” And it makes me smile before I keep walking to do whatever I need to do that day, a little more amazed by something beautiful in the world. Thank you Cornell and everyone who made this possible.

Great App, Small Flaw. Merlin is such a great app, and really fun to use and look for birds. It’s a great beginner app if you’re just starting out birding, but good for more experienced people too. The pictures are almost always extremely helpful, as are the maps, descriptions, and sounds. I haven’t tried photo or sound ID yet since I don’t have a good camera and usually don’t have the availability to record birds, but if I ever do I’m excited to try them. My only complaint is that when I want to add a bird to my life list, I have to go through Bird ID and have the bird I’ve identified as my bird appear as an option in order to select it. Usually this works fine, but often the bird I want to add doesn’t appear on the list, even if I fiddle with my selections. I can sign onto eBird and add it to my life list there, which will appear in the app and is fine, but as I’m more of an amateur birder I don’t find it necessary to have that much detail and it’s a pain to do. It would be helpful to have a place in the Merlin app to add to your life list without having to go through Bird ID.

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Excellent even when offline. Don’t know how it happens but even when birding and offline, I can check a species in Merlin. Fantastic having my recording through eBird linked to species records though Merlin. Love it!

Amazing!. This app is very easy to use and it never has a problem identifying a bird. I even had one hidden behind a branch and it identified it correctly. Highly recommended. I love it and use it all the time.

Very handy tool to help with the identification of birds and bird song.. Identifying Birds are not always easy you forget their names and their looks and also this their song ,having pictures and recordings of birdsong to refer back to is invaluable. In addition keeping a record and working with others for conservation is great. Thanks.

Best bird App. Ive had this a few months and its brilliant. I particularly like being able to put in a phone and get the match straight back. Highly recommended for amateur bird watchers.

Fave app. Wish you could use it offline.. I often go out camping or hiking where there is no reception. Shame you can’t ID and add birds while away from internet access 😟

Great App with some fixes. Great App in most sections. Just some inconsistencies to fix which I think is the intention of reporting when your bird isn’t found. E.g. The Start Bird ID doesn’t find a bird in my area e.g. brolga in Mt Isa. Photo Id found it. Explore birds doesn’t find any search results for Sarus Crane but it comes up under Photo Id. Thanks.

Won’t let me confirm email. Been using for about a year and now it’s telling me i need to confirm my email to continue. Fine, sure. Except I’ve been trying for days and it won’t send the email. And yes, I’ve checked spam.

Brilliant App. If I could give it 10 stars I wouldn’t hesitate in doing so. Being an admin of an Australian Native Bird group I often have to get an ID of a bird. Since I own no field guide books or anything I use Merlin with the Australian pack only to filter out similar species from overseas. I have had a 99.9% success rate finding out the positive ID with their calls & distribution also. I would say 100% success rate as it’s never been wrong but you never know it might be wrong once. Also being a free app they usually have limitations but I have found none that impact the information I need. Great work from The Cornell Lab in producing such an amazing & helpful app ..

Opened up a whole world of delight. Without Merlin I wouldn’t have enjoyed birding across the world. Easy to identify birds, particularly for N America, and a great step in learning more about birds, where to find them and being part of a great citizen science project.

Valuable. Such a useful app. Narrowing the list of possible birds for your location & having excellent audio recordings to help identification, even when you can’t see the bird.

Brilliant!. The only thing that could make this app better is a customisable bird call/photo quiz function using the sounds and images already in the app. It would be fantastic if the quiz could be customised to filter out life list species, particular genera (e.g. waterfowl) and for a specified location/time.

Great app but would like more info. I love the app. Great with 3 ways of identifying bird. However, would be nice with more info of the birds. Size in cm, nesting type, etc. Would also be nice to flag that more results are available when a bird is ‘unreported’ in an area.

A fantastic bird ID App. We are keen travellers and photographers all around the world and love photographing nature. I have captured many bird images and this App allowed me to identify every single one. It brought additional enjoyment reliving moments of the different birds in the different countries. Thank you. I look forward to you improving the site with more details.

Best learning tool. My new role requires me to identify birds and report on a daily basis. I did not have a tool like this in previous roles. That I can listen to the sounds along with the pictures is a game changer for me.

Very useful.. Have only had the app for a few days. Have used it several times already and it has been most accurate. Recommended.

Everyone should have this app!. This app really got me into birding. It makes it easy for beginners and is so handy to have when out birding and keeping track of birds you’ve seen. My favourite feature is that it tells you what birds are likely in any given area (radius), making it easier to identify what’s in your area. Highly recommend using it in conjunction with the bird app when you go birding.

Great app. This is an excellent app that helps me wherever I go birding. Instead of carrying a heavy book with me I can have it all on my iPhone, together with a variety of photos, sounds and location maps. I thoroughly recommend it to all birders.

Fantastic UK version. Poor Australian version.. My parents put me onto this app when visiting the UK recently. The sound ID was incredible and picked up many birds in short time. 5/5. On returning to Brisbane I installed the local bird data pack. It’s abysmal and cannot identify even the most common birds. 1/5.

Awesome app.. The app is great for ID-ing birds and saving their locations. The only issue is that if you don’t have the app with you when you see a bird, you can’t search for it in the explore section and save it to a location from there. You always have ti go through the ID steps, which sometimes can be difficult to find what you saw even if you knew what it was. If you could save birds from the explore pages it would get 5 stars from me.

Perfect for a novice birder. I’ve had this app for a couple of years now and I use it a lot! It’s helpful when I’m out walking in my local area and when I go further afield. I particularly like the region-specific bird packs which means, unlike my plant ID app, it’s relevant to my region and isn’t USA-centric. If I’m travelling can download a bird pack for that area. I’m one happy birder🦆

Fantastic app. This app is much easier to search than the paper guide books. Simply snap a photo of the bird and the app will identify it for you. This feature does require internet. However, country packs can be downloaded which can be accessed offline. Each bird comes with a short description, several photos and calls. The only suggestion to improve future versions is to include the scientific name alongside the common name.

Ok. Too restrictive on location so that birds a little out of their range do not show up. A way of relaxing these criteria is needed. Also difficult to get a bird from the search list to an observation.

Absolutely Fantastic!. What a great app for anyone that has an interest in birds or looking to get into birdwatching, twitching etc. It’s super easy to use and all the features are just awesome. Everyone I show is just amazed and want to download right there and then. I have a whole new appreciation for birds and look forward to seeing my next new bird. Keep the update's coming Merlin. Love the sound feature too. Play a bird sound and before you know it there is one of those in our yard.

Brilliant App. A truly wonderful App, so helpful to the amateur Twitcher like myself..even better now we can Shazam bird calls for a positive ID.. Probably the nicest App I have on my IPhone.. Thanks folks, keep up the good work..

Absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I was recommended this app by another avid birdwatcher who I bumped into in the wild, it has been so helpful, so informative and above all EASY. Simply a must have for people who are curious about Birds, photography, or tracking. Keep it up 10/10

Just needs to work offline!. Great app, I use it regularly to ID birds in Australia. However saving sightings or changing locations doesn’t work offline! Lots birds are not near mobile phone reception! Seems like a basic requirement for a wildlife app. Be 5 stars if this worked.

Good when works. Buggy doesn’t always work heard other reviews of issues for Australia. Is good when it does work sometimes searches don’t work at all .. other times works ok. Also have had to redone load packs a few times they just disappear

birding made easy. i love this app. im relatively new to birding and so the machine learning tools it uses to help me identify birds is super useful. i love that it has a life list, so i can collect the birds ive seen. the audio and information about birds is super cool too. ive only seen a few bugs - like the image showing in the thumbnail of a bird but not in its main section. other than that, highly recommend!

Amazing gets it correct!. Every bird I have identified yet has been correct. When you take a photo or do the test thing Five stars I totally recommend this!

Fantastic app, but still needs some work. I love this app, but I still require the internet and the General bird search to find my bird. For example I just put in a black and white bird and it came up with a galah, sulphur crested cockatoo, Australian king parrot and a rainbow bee-eater among other black and white birds. My bird wasn’t listed and I accidentally ID’ed the wrong bird. I ended up finding with the help of google and their bird list, but I can’t see any way of retracting my bird nor can I ID it through a general search. It has a lot of potential, it’s helping to keep an eye on bird populations.m and it’s free so I give it 5 stars.

Unrecognised bird.. Recently took a perfect lateral of a small adult bird in Oman. Merlin could not help..how do i submit and get an expert answer. Still learning how to use. Recently in Saudi Arabia and ebird is remarkably deficient. Also sometimes have an incidental or travelling moment. Photograph a bird but cant id as dont know and no internet etc eg Edge of the World in KSA. So difficult to register later. I travel to odd places and often see “rare” birds but try to contribute to the science. Today learned how to add media. Not obvious. Like where is the add photo icon at the register/id page (duh). Ie take the photo, id, add to list. Later submit. You assume id knowledge. For me order is wrong. Easy if at home. Galapagos Is. difficult.. Cook Is. difficult… I want to build my life list and add to the science. Note climate change is changing ranges. Thankyou for asking. Probably all my concerns are there i just have to learn more.

Great in the uk! Average in Australia. This I recently spent one in Ireland, and the uk and the app sound identification was amazing there; but when I returned to Australia and downloaded our local packs, I can’t get the sound if to work at all. I’m looking forward to an update to fix the issue.

Best birding app!. This app is superior to the alternatives, many of which are expensive. Also the data is shared with a research organisation rather than a company.

Gamifying Bird Watching. As a former science school teacher, this App is an incredible way to inspire younger generations to head outdoors and find as many of these incredible creatures as possible. Real life Pokemon!

Really Helpful 👍👍. This app is really amazing and easy to navigate. As someone who only recently got into birds, I find it cool to see what birds I can find near my house. I only wish that sound ID was a little more helpful, at least on Australian birds. I recorded a clear sound of a sulphur crested cockatoo (I already knew what it was) and it can up with no answers. One more thing- (I know I’m being annoying now) I wish that I could add a bird to my list already knowing what it is. This would make it easier to add birds. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Brilliant for beginners. Forget taking a field guide book on your birding adventure, just use this app on the go. Lots of great features, photographs and information. Love how you can record the bird call and it makes suggestions of the potential bird - very handy.

Great app! And only getting better. Highly recommend Merlin to anyone to use. There are several ways to find birds and there is lots of different pictures and sounds for most birds, making ID much easier than with a guidebook. We love using this app at home in Australia. The bird sound ID needs a bit of work (which I am sure it is getting- as the developers seem very good at working on and updating this app). We also discovered a bird pack for Sulawesi, Indonesia for our trip there which is fantastic! We were struggling to find a guidebook for this area and we’re very grateful that Merlin added a pack for it. They seem to add packs and updates quite often.

Amazing app. I use this app every time I’m out photographing birds. The information in the app is amazing to confirm the identity of the birds I’m photographing. I have used the bird calls or songs to see if nearby come out of curiosity. It has worked some times. The one challenge I have is the identification by sound doesn’t always work. The app keeps picking either the common bird noise, in my case the European black bird and not the other birds which are singing or calling at the same time. Overall I enjoy using the app. I recommend this for any bird enthusiasts or photographers.

Great App in parts. Works fine if it can identify your bird. If you know the bird but the app can’t find it then you have no way of adding it to your life list. Similarly if you add one by mistake you can’t remove it. Also crashes a lot when generating bird list

Very helpful app. Chris in Australia. I have found this app to be very useful in identifying birds. My checklists are now more accurate. As well, it is quite accurate in identifying all but the rarer birds The rare bird identification issue will improve the more we use the app due to the artificial intelligence driving it. I just wish I could tell the app the correct species name after I have my bird identified by other means.

Excellent App. Australia. What an amazing app and it's free! I find myself going outdoors looking for birds so I can play with this app! It gives all the information I need with several photos of each bird with a detailed description, photo ID, sound ID, map and an extensive list of bird species to explore.

Excellent resource!. I can’t believe that this is a free resource. I have paid for bird apps that are less polished and contain less information about birds than this app. Very grateful to the team who develops and maintains it!

Fabbo app. This is the best bird app I’ve ever used! I love that it has heaps of info about the birds in my remote area of Australia, and that I can make a life list of spotted birds. I LOVE how accurately the app identifies birds from my photos!! I took one star off because sometimes I have to search around in the app to identify the bird I have seen. For example, we have (non-native) peafowl in our area, and the app won’t identify the bird using the usual search process. Peafowl are within the app, and I could add them to my life list, but only because I knew what they are called and could search alphabetically. However, I understand the app is being updated all the time, and I still have a way to go to learn all the app’s great features. I am super grateful that such a fabulous resource is available for free. Thank you Cornell Uni!!!

Great potential. This app is on the right track for IDing birds but being in Australia it has a long way to go for a good repertoire of birds to ID with. The song ID is not so good at recognising birdsong and it’s not easy to search for a bird if the proposed IDs are not correct. I usually find my bird by scrolling through the list of birds using “Explore”. However it would be great if you could add the bird to your life list from there, but you can’t. It’s the best app we have so far for identifying birds and I use it all the time.

Game changer for bird photography. I’ve been getting into bird photography the past three months and not always found it easy to identify what I’m photographing... until now. This app helps lots! My only gripe is that it doesn’t let me submit birds on my iPad (where my photos are downloaded to) - I can ID them there but not save to my list. Have worked around this by photographing the picture on my pad using my phone. Opportunity to improve things there but otherwise great. As others have said, would love a Shazam type option for bird calls as cannot always see the feathered friends but can often hear them.

A must have if it covers your area. This app is fantastic - with AI-driven bird identification from an uploaded image (even taking a photo of the camera or computer screen) and it is very accurate. There are 2 data packs for Australia, but only east coast so far. The explore component is the equivalent of your field guide, but provides real world images uploaded by other users - which I find are usually more useful than the typical illustrations as it more often shows the differences seen across times of year, maturity etc.

Really good and easy to use. I’m no birder, I can spell ornithologist but can’t identify one in a lineup, however I’ve moved to a house that has made the bush and birds an integral part of my day. It’s been a bit a bit of a surprise. Cornell’s app is easy to use and scratches my itch to know ‘what bird is that?’ - and has multiple ways to get to that answer. I’m going to give it 5 stars because it does it’s primary function so well. But it misses a bonus trick I reckon. Even though I was pretty open to the next level and actually logging bird sightings… because it gives an internal (Internal to this app. Easy? Not as useful to others?) and an external (Different app. Clunky? But the ‘best’ and most useful to others?) options to do that, I’ve ended up doing neither, which is a shame. Nevertheless - A+ well done.

Faroes. I have used this app extensively and been very happy until the past week or so. I am in the Faroe Islands and have found the app virtually useless. Obvious birds simply aren’t recognised by the app and step by step searches produce results that are clearly not correct - some searches produce no results and others produce results that I can’t reconcile with the search criteria. I still love the app but not in the Faroes.

Doesn’t work in Australia (VIC Metropolitan). It basically doesn’t work in Australia. I’ve taken it to areas filled with many many bird species and the only bird it’s been able to identify for me is the common myna which is invasive. I don’t think they should be offering maps of areas that are as incomplete as this this. It couldn’t even identify a magpie or currawong.

Amazing. This app is absolutely amazing such a wonderful source of information and I don’t understand how it’s completely free! I have just recently started bird photography and this app is a must have!!

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was good but now data-grubbing. At least leave the email address stuff optional. Sometimes takes too long for the app to open and begin recording.

the GOAT!. this is the greatest bird identification app of all time, without a doubt. I’ve used it in north america and europe, and it has allowed me to discover birds i didn’t even know existed.

Magique. Cette application m’émerveille tous les jours. J’en suis obsédée; je fais de l’ornithologie amateur et elle m’aide vraiment dans mes identifications. Regarder la magie opérer lorsque Merlin identifie tous les chants autour de nous même si nous ne voyons pas les oiseaux est extraordinaire. En plus, l’application est en lien avec EBird, une autre application qui me tient à cœur pour aider les biologistes par nos observations. Bravo et merci Merlin !

Best app on my iPhone BUT. Lost a star due to excessive battery usage. The app is great, but it uses about 1% a minute while I’m running it. I need to force it shut and reopen it to use it again to conserve battery. I’m not exaggerating. It literally will go down 10% in 10 minutes. Can you please fix this? If I’m out on a nature walk, I can’t use it the entire time or I will drive my phone dead. Yes, I’ve rebooted. I’ve deleted my sound recordings. This seems to be a recent glitch.

Nice!. It’s really good for young birders! If you add a sound identifier, that would be awesome!

Amazing AI Technology. Very cool to take a photo and identify a bird. Then I can also listen to the bird calls to confirm it’s the bird I saw. If you are an avid border or just occasionally run into a bird you aren’t familiar with, use this app!

Best identification app ever. I will love to be able to use more than one language at once for each bird

Excellent app for Bird identification. My favorite app to easily identify birds. / Mon application favorite pour identifier facilement les oiseaux.

Great app but sound ID not working as well as before. I love this app! Please make sound ID work as well as it did with the previous version! Thanks 🦉

Just starting to explore the app.. Great ID system. Just ID the great blue heron and listening to the sound provided I thought it was a poor choice. I am assuming that the bird recorded was in some kind of nesting area. 99% of the time when you see them and hear them is when they have been disturbed and take off in flight, squawking in annoyance. They sound like what I imagine a pterodactyl would sound like. Multiple recordings maybe? Listed from most common call to least.

Great App. I would give this app 5 stars if Australia was included. I hope they add it soon

efficient. very easy to use especially for me who is bird watching for the first time

Birds around Lake Ontario in Oakville. I love having Merlin Bird I D

IDs birds very well. i just record and it identifies the right birds all the time. great app

Amazing App. Every birding fan should have this app.

Meilleure app d’identification!. Merlin m’a fait découvrir tant d’espèces d’oiseaux dans ma région que j’en suis éblouie. Leur service de soutien et de documentation est excellent. Je le recommande chaleureusement!

Wow I just can’t get enough. I Watch birds but I couldn’t find out what they were but when I got this app I could identify everything (birds) and it is amazing

Good. Its good. That’s it.

What an amazing app. If only all apps could be executed this way. So much information. My only concern is that when I do a bird search under the explore tab, and find the bird I want to add to my life list, there is no button to add. Seems something is missing. Looks like a bug. I then have to go through the identify tab the long way to be able to add the bird to my list.

Excellent. Love this app. Gives me ar reason to get out and walk. Seems to be very accurate.

Best bird app!. Handy, incredibly informative

Bird. Amazing because I can catch bird oh yea

Excellent app!. Excellent app and amazing technology (sound and photo id). My rating would be 5 stars if the bird size in inches and centimetres was indicated.

Very engaging app. Not only can you ID birds by description but there are many resources in this app. I love to turn it on while out for a walk and watch the birds pop onto the screen as I’m hearing them. Very cool tool.

Better than meditating every morning. Instead of meditating (which was somewhat helpful to me), I sit on my balcony in the morning/afternoon and record calls or birdsong. I’ve discovered so much just in my own backyard. Educational, delightful and calming app!

Awesome App. Love this App. Record sounds & identifies bird or search by description… step by step. Handy to have when enjoying natures feathered friends

Bird Nerd. Merlin Bird ID makes learning about birds so easy and fun! I often share your app with friends who are curious about birds and their behaviors. 🤓

Good app. Love identifying birds 🫶

Fun easy to use and interesting. I learned a lot and it’s a very well made app

love but missing one thing. love this app but wish it would show wingspan!

Very User Friendly. So easy to use and very helpful identifying with sounds or pictures or a description. Has an extensive range and gives you choices. Excellent and a pleasure to use.

Best app ever!. Love this app, the bird sounds help me identify many birds I hear in my yard or out hiking. The best app out there for bird lovers.

Mysteries solved. How fantastic to finally know who is singing to me! I know the most common birds around me, but it’s a thrill to discover the others who are hidden in the trees, passing through while migrating or heard in faraway lands. I love this app!

Game changer. Merlin has changed (enhanced) my birding and increased my interest in birding by ear. Merlin and I don’t always agree and each of us hears birds the other doesn’t, but it is a fantastic partner and aid.

Was great. Now seems broken. I love Merlin. Or, rather, I used to love Merlin. Great info and, when I first got it two years ago, it was magic at identifying bird calls. Then it was updated and now is mostly just for reading the info. The sound ID doesn’t work most of the time and will rarely identify a bird now. It will say that it’s hearing a bird , but won’t identify it unless the bird is the loudest thing in the area. It was much better before the update. I learned a lot with Merlin when it worked. I rarely use it now and am back to being the guy that no longer has a clue what that bird is.

Great tool. Perfect? No. But as an in for the regular person who has little or even moderate knowledge it’s great. Both to learn bird songs, but also just discover there are more birds around than they see.

Sound ID and call library amazing!!. Really a wonderful app. One of the few online sources of happiness and wonder.

Awesome app!. Love this app so much. Love how it listens to bird calls and songs and then identifies which bird it is. So wonderful! Love using it while having a cup of coffee outside - put it on while listening to birds and then find out which birds you’re listening to!

Great, but not prefect.. I use use app all the time. It’s a huge tool in my birding adventures. A word of caution, when using the sound Id take it with a grain of salt. Always follow it up with a visual confirmation. The sound id feature identified my son a a long eared owl 4 different times this season. So… yeah not perfect! But very handy when it is right.

So much fun. I have enjoyed this app so much and it’s fun to share with others. The ID by sound is a great addition to a walk in the woods!

Helpful. This has been a great resource for me as I have lived abroad for the past 5 years, in two different countries. The Sound ID not working so well for me in SE Asia, where the data base is sparce. I will try and do my part and submit sound recordings whenever possible!

What has happened?!?. This app used to be wonderful for identifying birds. I used it extensively in North America and Latin America. Recently, it has become “tone deaf” to identifying any birds. My bird packs are up to date and running the latest version of the app. Very disappointing.

Merlin. I have always enjoyed listening and watching birds but would not call myself a birder. I simply didn’t know the thrill of identifying a bird! I’ve learned so much from this app. The added thrill now is because I have listened so intently I am learning to identify birds through their calls and songs. It so satisfying to listen and confidently go that’s a killdeer check with the app and confirm my guess. Keeps me amused!

Nothing but issues. Worked well for a couple of months and now whenever I open it I get an email saying my five day grace period is over and I need to confirm via an email they’re sending me. Except it’s never received, no where, junk ir anywhere else. Added Cornell email to my contact list, no difference. Uninstalled and reinstalled, works for a couple of times, then we’re back to a five day grace period notification.

Has a few problems. I love it but I can’t sign into it no matter what I try but it’s amazing.

Problems with text size and bird packs. When you set the text to a larger size on an iPhone, a lot of the species lists become hard to read. The big characters overflow and don’t show totally. It is very hard to figure out where and how to switch between different species packs. I don’t know if I should go to explore or settings.

Fantastic. I love this app. I showed my co-workers how well it works. They all downloaded it too ! One fellow said he was calling his mother, to get her to download it !!! This app works great and is a favorite.

Great app!. One of the best apps to Id birds. It has helped me figure out so many new ones at my feeder. I am giving it one less star because it doesn’t save the birds you have seen. I want it to record a list of all of my birds

Love it!. This app makes her being outside, within the backyard or on the nature walk, so much more meaningful and informative.

Great app until. This is an awesome app and I use it all the time until the most recent big iOS update a couple weeks ago. Now the spectrograms are no longer recorded. The app lists the birds it hears but I can’t replay the sound to hear it myself. All permissions are turned on at my end. This is an app or iOS issue. Please fix it 😕

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This app is aces in many ways * trust me it’s for you!. I’ve been using Merlin Bird ID for a very long time now. I discovered it when I first started studying birds, which I understand happens pretty much once any woman nears menopause. I know it seems unrelated but I’m hoping that I can speak to my fellow women when I say this has been a wonderful distraction from all of the people in the world that just get on our nerves every day. The Merlin Bird ID app makes recordings that listen to the different sounds in your area and help you identify what each of those sounds represent. I have become quite the social watcher and have a written playbook in my mind for the families of birds that live in my yard. Blue Jays are mean as can be but they get props for keeping the riffraff down from other birdy-breeds. This is a scientific learning and also data gathering tool that should not be overlooked!

Excellent birding by ear accuracy!. I learned bird songs many years ago, and birding by ear is now second nature. I have used the sound portion of this app for a few days now, and it’s very accurate. It’s sensitive to faint sounds at a great distance. It helps me focus on calls and songs I might otherwise have overlooked, for example during dawn chorus in spring! Some calls (not songs) it can’t yet ID - for example, pine siskin - and once it mis-ID’d a brief sound as a green heron (no water for 1/4 mile). But generally, even its ID of warbler and flycatcher short chips is correct. But, so far, for approximately 40 different species - probably 300 birds total - in various locations, the accuracy is astounding. The fact that when the bird sings a second and third etc time, the bird’s ID photo lights up yellow is a great educational feature for people new to matching sounds with the ID. Highly recommend the app.

Very useful app. Can be improved.. I’ve been using this app for a couple of years and have really enjoyed identifying birds in my backyard. The good: The picture ID function works quite well, IF you can get a decent picture of the bird. Snapping a photo from far away and then zooming in with a photo app usually does not suffice. The recent addition of the sound ID is phenomenal! I can sit in my patio, start the recording and find all the birds making music. I recently recorded a summer tanager, a bird I’ve yet to see but know they’re around. Saving birds to the bird for Life list is a convenient and easy way to save what birds I’ve observed. My list is small compared to experienced birders but I find this is a fun way to save my experiences. The could be better parts In the Exploring birds section, I can type in the name and find my bird. I just did this with a Baltimore Oriole which I hadn’t seen at my feeders until now. Unfortunate, from this part of the app, I cannot save to my Life List! Very frustrating! Even more frustrating is the bird ID section would not bring up the Baltimore Oriole at all! If it had, I could add to my life list but unfortunately, this section of the app fails often. I changed the parameters in many different ways but to no avail. I’m not quite sure why the app won’t bring up the Baltimore Oriole since this is a very distinct black and Orange bird. No doubt about. Fixing these two issues would up the rating to a solid 5.

Magical app, but still needs one CRITICAL feature. This app is extremely easy to use and accurate for identifying birds based on both sighting characteristics and photos. The photo identification feature nearly aligns with Arthur C Clarke’s third law, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and hence the app name of Merlin is extremely appropriate. HOWEVER, it does not allow you save your bird history, DESPITE the app explicitly stating that your sighting “response has been recorded to improve Merlin’s accuracy.” Such an oversight is nearly inexcusable, as it requires you to save your own screenshots or enter the info in a separate document or in eBird (for which both the interface and ease-of-use are greatly inferior to and clumsier than those of Merlin). I am practically begging the developers to add a bird history/tracking function to this app ASAP (as they have claimed to have been working on for at least the last six months), as I would be more than willing to pay for such functionality and the app would no doubt merit the full five out five stars.

Being in the world. I listen to birds outside my window, and am with them when I know which birds are chirping, building nests, laying eggs, raising the next generation. I’m connecting their songs with seeing them in the trees, shrubs, and flying. Last year there were more than 40 bird species in my backyard. Additionally, my father was a veterinarian - avian epidemiologist at the USDA, and a lecturer at Cornell Veterinary School. He died many years ago. Through Merlin, I feel connected to my father and his work, across time and landscapes. A friend 3k miles away introduced me to Merlin. I have introduced several people to it. One woman I know now uses Merlin to connect with her grandchildren. They listen to and watch birds together, then read about them online. There is hope in the world when children learn to love and care for the planet. Merlin demonstrates some of the best we can do with technology.

THE App for Birders. I love Merlin. As a former beginner birder, it was and still is an excellent tool. The sound ID is helpful for double checking ID’s and sometimes alerting me to what is in the area, but out of sight. If there was one thing I could change about the app (to which my birder friends have also complained about), it would be to allow manual markings on birds sighted without going through the ID. For data collection purposes, I can understand the need to be thorough, but personal merlin sightings do not go towards ebird data to begin with. I’d really like the ability to just check off a bird - especially because I was manually keeping track of my list before Merlin. There are many basic birds I would like to add, but I am far from remembering where or when I saw them. (Such as the coot, western bluebird, summer tanager, ect.) A simple list to add or remove sightings would be phenomenal. Otherwise, 5/5 app, I cannot recommend it more to new and veteran birders alike.

Needs photos in description info. I absolutely LOVE Merlin. I use all functions every day, multiple times daily. I enjoy seeing the seasonal changes in our local birds, particularly living very close to a large protected area along the James River. My one complaint, which I view as very significant, is that there are no pictures of the birds once you seek out details/information. You get a thumbnail of the bird within a list but as soon as you click on it you only have the Merlin logo bird where it sure seems that pictures of the bird should be in order to further your knowledge and help in identification. It’s so frustrating to have to switch over to Google in order to actually SEE the bird that you are identifying/researching. Please, please, PLEASE fix this issue! It doesn’t make any sense as to why pictures are not attached to each bird’s profile. Thank you! Kim

Best Use of my Time. When the world is boiling, I go outside and listen to my neighbors greet the day. I’ve lived next to this river for over 6 years so I’m familiar with certain songs and calls, but didn’t know who they belong to. Now I can record the sound in real time and start to identify who’s who in my bird world. And of course during migratory seasons, I can hear a new song and quickly identify the traveler. And the spectrograms (visual representation of the sound frequencies) offer another layer to get to know the birds’ songs. Play special attention to the triple decker Swainson’s Thrush song if you are ever blessed to hear them and you can SEE the complexity of their song. You have to click share and then export spectrogram to see this. Bonus points for this app working without service too! All my backpacking buddies were stunned that I was identifying our feathered friends past 5,000 feet.

Woohoo!! This app is great!!. I’m as new a birder as one can be, so it’s been...overwhelming, to say the least! I moved onto the farm where I work and have 27acres backing a river to trudge through. I have seen so many birds I’ve never seen before and thanks to this app, I can easily and accurately (I can only assume, since I obviously don’t know, but the pictures they show with their guesses are always numerous and clear, I’m quickly able to tell if that’s the bird I saw or not). The more I learn, the more I’m beaming with excitement and I have to thank this app and the creators for giving me that ability to connect the dots, even as a hobbyist who doesn’t have access to all the information. The app is clean, easy to use and understand, jam-packed with maps and gps and photos and information. You can look up any bird in multiple ways, from the bird or the region. I’m sure there’s more I’m missing, because, again, NEWB, but so far this app is everything and more!!

I love this app!. Being a fairly new bird watcher, just over a year in, this app is so helpful to me. It’s easier than scouring the pages of my giant book when I’m not even sure of the family of a particular bird I’ve sighted, the photo ID is wonderful even when my picture isn’t the best. Until I have better equipment for photo taking the few misses are to be expected. The sound ID is wonderful since often times I have multiple birds and am not sure which is making which sound so this helps me to know which bird I’m hearing and put sight and sound together. It even caught the sound of a bird I hadn’t yet seen and once I did and got a photo, I was able to connect them. It keeps account of all the birds I’ve seen, when and where, and I use it every single day everywhere I go. I’d give it 10 stars if it were an option!

Favorite app missing 1 thing!. I love this app and use it almost daily. It makes my hobby of feeding and watching my local birds more fun, and it really helps me know what to look for and identify new birds, while I’m on vacation in a different part of the world. I just have 1 wish to an already feature rich app. In the species info, it would be nice to see a silhouette image along with an object for reference, such as silhouettes of other well known birds to see how the size matches up. This could be similar to the ID tool where a rough size is selected. That same graph could be used with the size range of that bird highlighted and be placed below the already offered description. I know a lot of bird ID books will provide a silhouette of the bird in comparison to the size of the book. This is helpful in identification, especially when species can look similar, except for size, like the Cooper’s Hawk and the Sharp Shinned Hawk. Or the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers.

Best bird id tool I’ve ever seen. Easy to use. It narrows the list of possibilities down based on the date and your location so you only consider birds that you might actually see. You can easily search the list if you think you know what the bird you’re seeing is, or if you haven’t a clue, you can use the simple q&a method. That works for complete beginners. I have recommended Merlin to several beginners and all have found it great. And the recent addition of identification of bird songs and calls is a big step forward. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s impressively good and I know that Cornell will keep working on it and improving it. I have tried several birding apps, but no more. Merlin is the one I will stay with. I no longer bother to carry a bird book in the field. I also like the easy cross reference to Merlin from EBird.

Great for ID help for newbies, but struggles with tough IDs. This app is a great resource and I use it every time I go birding. The ID Info section does away with extraneous details and gives a succinct summary of field marks, which is great when trying to ID on the fly. The numerous pictures for every bird -usually in all plumages and from many angles - are also so helpful. However, I find myself usually just using the explore birds feature rather than the ID program because I find it more effective to manually narrow down my options. Because the criteria are so limited it often leaves out birds it should not or if you are incorrect about one detail this can throw off the whole search. It also only suggests common species in your area, which is frustrating because it is the uncommon birds I need help identifying. If you are just starting out birding or are birding in an unfamiliar area this app is a must have, but even moderately skilled birders can outperform the app’s ability to come up with potential ID answers.

This newbie loves it.. Love this app. Recently retired, I now have time to take walks and observe my natural surroundings, a pleasure I lacked time to do for decades. In my suburban area I started hearing symphonies, courtesy of our feathered friends, but actually saw only a small percentage of these avian musicians. Who is making all this sound? I can almost always get a correct answer now, even if there’s some noise from car, truck, or plane traffic. When I’m lucky enough to get a photo of one of these folks sitting still for a moment, I can almost always count on identifying that way too. I never was a real birdwatcher, but I’m headed in that direction now. True, the app isn’t perfect and maybe never can be - I have a local mockingbird that I suspect is fooling it sometimes, and once in a while it just can’t identify what it’s hearing - but this has brought a lot of joy to me, and maybe a new hobby.

Great for getting to know the birds in your life. I’ve had this app downloaded for a while now but only somewhat recently started actively using the bird ID options. The sound ID is great for identifying the birds you hear daily but maybe don’t catch a close glimpse of. I’ve found it helps for when you do see a bird close enough to ID by sight since the app includes in its database many photos of both males and females. The life list is a great function too so you can be reminded of the usual suspects, and the more rare sightings! I absolutely adore this app. It brings me joy to be able to put a name to the song and sightings of the birds I notice daily. And the most amazing part is that the app and all of its functions are still free! That said, I would be hard pressed to not pay a one-time fee, or even a subscription, as I am still in the process of learning who all of the birds in my life are. As a amateur and newbie birder I love this app.

♥️Song ID feature. I LOVE this app❣️I have had CDs with birdsongs before but I’d listen and then there’d be too many in my mind to decipher who was who. I always have my phone on me and with this app if I hear a bird I want to identify I just pull it out and start recording and voila there the bird song/call is identified. I love that as it records, if other birds chime in, the app will identify them too…and with each new one the birds name comes up in a list so you don’t get confused. I love this feature as it’s like a pop quiz—I’m trying to learn the main one and I say the names of the others before they pop up in the list. Another feature I like is that once you and the app have identified a bird then there is a list of recordings to verify the song was the right one….and you learn any other call/song they might have. So fun-am learning so much❣️

This app is a game-changer!. Although I love going out birding with two relatives and enjoy taking pictures of the birds I see, I am not a very knowledgeable birder. I’ve an enthusiastic amateur! 😄 Merlin ID though has taken my birding to a new level. I LOVE the Sound ID feature and am amazed at the birds it finds! One day it heard a Great-crested Flycatcher. I could tell which tree it was in but was not able to spot it. My sister had gotten a photo of it a few days before. I’ll keep trying! I love that particular park even more now that I’m finding out all the birds that are there! I do wonder though about the Pileated Woodpecker Merlin identified for my sister-in-law even though she couldn’t hear it. Lol. We’ve seen one there a couple times anyway, but I’ve never not heard that bird! So I am suspect on that ID. Merlin sure makes birding more fun when we know what we’re looking for!

An outstanding resource. I’ll start with the most important part: This is a free app without adds! In an era where most seem to think it’s not worth it to create something if there isn’t a profit motive, thankfully Merlin Bird exists. I haven’t been able to find a free bug finder app that isn’t crippled by ads, so I am grateful to have one for birds. A tiny downside is that on rare occasion the search doesn’t bring up any birds that match what I’m looking at, and even if I find the answer by looking it up elsewhere, there doesn’t seem to be any way to enter a bird that is not listed. But the app is so helpful 99% of the time - and again, it’s FREE - that I can’t bring myself to score it any less than 5* just because it isn’t absolutely flawless. I encourage everyone to download this app, then go outside and observe the beauty of nature.

Great concept - very approach - some flaws. I love the idea of this app. I have loved birds all my life and this is a great way to identify and log birds you see and even hear. The Sound ID is very impressive and for me works better than the main Start Bird ID feature used for visual identification. For the visual identification as an alternative to the option of going thru the size/colors/etc questions I would like the ability to use the explore birds to directly find a bird if I know what it is or at least have a good idea of the type of bird it is. Sometimes with the questions you don’t get the actual bird it is from the options given. The second issue is the app crashes too much, either when using the sound ID and doing recording of when you go back in later to tie and document the recorded sound to the right bird. Last night it crashed and I lost all recording for the last year.

Great beginner app and has advanced features. This app is great for the beginner with how it is configured with five inputs the birder is asked to supply(color, location, behavior, date, and size). It gives likely birds to the user can select that match the bird they saw. The sound feature is great for an advanced birder as it allows identification based on the sounds being heard, that it matches with bird calls. This feature has allowed me to identify birds that I may not have been aware of. The down side to the app is it often will not show a rare or uncommon bird which is highly frustrating. It would be nice to have other or expanded inputs such a fourth color and beak type or other identifiers. The life list is really nice but if you can’t add a bird you know you’ve seen because it’s rare and the app won’t show it is irritating. It would also be nice to allow someone to add a bird thru the Explore Birds feature when you don’t get a match….

Amazing Features - Hours of Fun. This app has brought so much joy to my life as a beginning birder. It is so well designed. The Sound ID is one of my favorite features, as is the ability to see Likely Birds, which I can customize according to time and location. I love being able to see what birds are my in area and watching that change day to day and week to week. I can also see what birds I might see when I travel, and can plug in my travel dates for better accuracy. I am truly grateful for this app. The one area of identification I currently struggle with is hawks. I have found some great resources online that have been helpful, but it would be great if Merlin could incorporate some more information into their various hawks and raptors. I would love to be able to see a scale of sizes, for instance. I do think the Bird ID is excellent but could be improved for greater accuracy.

The ONE app I recommend to everyone!. Because of this app, I know that the reason twelve squirrels, a bunch of small birds, and the chipmunk on my lap just vanished is because Screamy McBirdface overhead is a red-shouldered hawk. I know the one bird still singing is a cardinal. Wait, now I know that the little fella who just buzzed me is a ruby-throated hummingbird. I also know that the aggressive little yellow guy in winter is a pine warbler, not a goldfinch, and that the screaming in the night is not a bird—which let me learn that I have flying squirrels! This app has allowed me to learn so much about the birds and wildlife in my backyard, which in turn has allowed me to set up appropriate feeding stations. Because of this, I have daily visits with bluebirds (cooler weather), hummingbirds (warmer weather), and a new fish crow friend who sits next to me accepting peanuts. Everyone should have this app!

Best birding app. I have been using this app for about 4 months now. I have tried out multiple apps but this one by far is my favorite. It keeps track of all the birds I have seen so I know how many different species that I have seen in my life. It identifies birds from pictures, sounds, and you can even do a step by step if you only saw the bird for a couple seconds and weren’t able to get a picture. It shows you what birds are likely for your area which makes it super nice to know what I might see. You can also plan ahead and change your location and date if you want to see what birds you will most likely see on a trip. The birds are marked with a red dot if they are rare for your area at that time or a yellow/orange dot if they are uncommon. I would recommend this app to anyone who is into birding from advanced to beginners.

You won’t go wrong with this app!. My family has used this app extensively as we camp, hike, and simply walk the neighborhood! It gives a quick assessment of possible birds we see after a handful of simple questions. We downloaded the SE Australia bird pack on a pre-COVID trip there, and had great fun identifying and appreciating a bevy of exciting (new to us) species. Also the US and Canada bird pack guided us through a road trip and back country journeys there. We have sent photos in for additional help when the app was inconclusive, and received prompt, accurate answers! Plus the bird songs and calls are there. Awesome for beginners and experienced birders alike. Kudos to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Wish we had figured out how to track life lists with eBird via a link to the Merlin App long ago. If birding is on your radar, you’ll love this app. (We impress our friends with our quick IDs too!)

Still An Essential App - Now Even Better. UPDATE: The new layout and workflow makes this totally awesome app even totally awesomer!Whether you're a new or beginning birder, addictive or casual, you definitely need this software on your device! There is no other free, no-ads software out there that has as many features as Merlin with absolute ease of use. I use Merlin when hiking, just to see which birds might be in the area. With three ways to search for bird info (guided question / answer entry; submitting your photo for comparison to the vast Merlin database, or pointing your phone in the direction of interesting songs and letting Merlin tell you what you're listening to), I have very rarely not been able to identify the species I might be looking at or hearing. I always recommend that new birders install Merlin before their first outing. I recommend you do as well!

Best app on my phone?. Since Sound ID I love this app a lot, use it every day and now always looking forward to my next time to get out. My girlfriend has gotten into it without me forcing it on her, just because it’s fun. When i catch up with people i tell them about this magical “like Shazam for birds” app that occupies my time. Only reason for 4 star and will change to deserved 5 star once fixed is because there is a bug i have witnessed on more than one device where it prevents being able to download US and Canada continental bird pack (says needs 2.93 gb on devices with plenty 10+gb of free space). Also my girlfriends app all of the bird images in the explore birds app got whited out one day and when you clicked on them it to view bird details took her to bird packs, then app would not let her uninstall our area’s corrupted bird pack. She then had to delete/reinstall app losing all of her sound recordings.

Magnificent Tool!!. I have a strong background in bird ID. I’m not exactly sure when in my youth that came about, but as a middle-aged fella, I got the urge to take a more systematic approach to bird ID. For example, my wife and I were walking back to the car after witnessing the Northern migration off the Washington coast when I saw a bird in a tree chattering at us. I looked at it through my binos, puzzled for a moment, and then said to my wife, “It’s not a black bird.” After a bit more puzzling, I said, “I think it’s a cow bird.” Did I have any clue what a cow bird was? Nope! Could I have described it to you? Nope! But somewhere in my earlier years (beyond memory) I became familiar w/ cow birds. Huh? Well, then I pulled up this fabulous app, found the cow bird and starting playing calls until I cam to one that was identical to the one that the bird above me was chattering on repeat. Cool experience w/ the app and w/ delving into some unknown recess of bird knowledge I never knew I had.

It’s Magic. This Is a perfectly marvelous app. I live in a wooded area where birds are often singing but usually not visible and of course they all sing at the same time. I love to sit with Merlin listening and identifying the voices all around me. It’s like wearing scuba goggles underwater because it opens up this whole world you otherwise couldn’t see. A couple suggestions: 1) it would be great to have a just listen mode instead of always recording. Still ID the birds but not save the recording. 2) In the bird descriptions, add some typical dimensions. I know you choose the relative size as the first step but helpful to add in the bio. 3) interesting to have some measure of the quality of the identification. For example based on song, 75% probability it’s a scarlet tanager. I think it might be there with the best match indicator but not clear. Thanks for creating one of the best apps out there.

Amazing. This app is truly amazing. I don’t typically go out of my way to write a review but this app blows my mind. I know next to nothing about birds and couldn’t identify one by call or by seeing it. I live in the Oregon Coast and heard some cool sounding birds from time to time. No one around here could id them. I found this app and it’s really amazing to use it and watch the birds get identified. And then I can re-listen to the recording and it will isolate the bird calls by bird so I can here them separately and be sure I am hearing the correct bird. I am blown away by how quickly, and I think accurately it isolated the bird calls and songs. Thank you so much for putting this app out there to help experts get the last bit of help they need and to help noobs like me get an education on what is around us that we often don’t see or hear.

Excellent App, very entertaining, some small bugs. Since downloading the app I’ve used it every single day, I love it. It’s very useful and informative and gives me something fun to do while hiking around my area. Unfortunately, often times while using the sound recording function, the app crashes and you have to reload the app in order to get it to work again. This mainly happens if during a recording no birds are heard or identified. The app still saves this recording however, and even after reloading the app and attempting to review the recording the app will freeze up again. This makes it difficult to identify birds that the app simply couldn’t hear clearly enough, and it’s disappointing to have to delete a recording you would have liked to have listened to again. Otherwise, the app is phenomenal, and I will likely be using it for years to come.

One of the best bird apps ever, not recommended for iPads…. My whole family has been loving this app, many ways to figure out what bird it is, and if you don’t like choosing than that’s okay! I can review what birds I’ve seen in the past and I can always go back and check something if I need to! I swear it knows exactly what bird it is! And no need for binoculars either! This is one of the best apps I’ve seen in a long time! But there’s one thing that is a problem for me, I have a IPad, and I think it’s a little annoying that it’s only phone, if I’m going to get a app that’s free, I don’t expect it to be good, and it is very good, but it’s just bothering me, also, sometimes it makes you go the long way around and sometimes it doesn’t which doesn’t feel right to me, but this app sure does have it all, and even if you don’t want to do it, that’s ok with me, but I think it’s definitely worth it, our family did and we L O V E it!!!!

Sooooo great!. This a perfect accompaniment to all of your bird watching events. I downloaded the pack of birds for the western united states, since I live there. You can ID birds with sound recordings, which lists the birds it hears and then highlights them every time it’s heard so you can pinpoint what your hearing. There re multiple clear pictures of every bird, which makes identifying super simple. You can also search the database by providing a few basic details to narrow down what you might be looking at. You can also take a picture from your phone and load it to identify using your own picture. I love, love, love that I can set up an account and keep track of my life list right there in the app. This has been so much fun to use, from my back yard to vacations, and I can’t wait to see or hear something new so I can open and use this wonderful app!

My new favorite app. This has quickly become one of my favorite apps I have on my phone. I work at a wildlife rehab and I was not a huge birder until I started working with them more. Consequently, I was not too knowledgeable on bird IDing but due to the nature of my work I needed to learn fast. Thanks to the Merlin app, I’m able to quickly find out what kind of bird I’m looking at. It’s like a super easy dichotomous key, answer a few questions and you get a list of birds that fit the description complete with maps and sounds. I think Merlin has been correct with the first suggestion about 99% of the times I’ve used it, and the 1% of times is probably rare birds at work that were found somewhere they shouldn’t be. If you are interested in learning more about birds I absolutely recommend the Merlin app as well as the All About Birds website/Cornell lab of ornithology ebird website 🕊🦩🦢🦃🦜🦚

Very pleased!. I’m happy with the accuracy of the sound recording identification. I watch birds daily that visit my bird feeders and perch in the shrubs/trees I planted for them. It’s my meditation time to sit outside and watch the name of the bird highlighted I’m hearing while watching them. Perfect for familiarizing yourself with different bird sounds. The accuracy is insane close by 98% accuracy over 10 hours of time personally doing a trial myself. Studies show therapeutic results lifting depression 8 hours after hearing bird calls. For fun you can end the recording and it shows and drop down of all the recordings of sounds each bird can sing. You can play back each one. Today I played the blue jays different songs on my phone and the blue jays outside joined in a chorus. My moms face lit up with a smile and the joy of birds signing along when I showed her. Get this app now it’s worth every relaxing and joyful moment spent using it. Cheers!

Great app! But.... I have really enjoyed using this app even though I was an experienced birdwatcher before I downloaded this app. It asks very simple questions as to size, color, activity, etc. that make it rather easy to identify many of the birds that are commonly found in my location. It think it would be great for beginning birders to use this app to familiarize themselves quickly with the great variety of birds commonly found on a regular basis in a location. However, its very simplicity makes it less desirable for more experienced birders who may be looking either to identify by group, color gradations, and sex, or to expand their knowledge with uncommon birds or those who may be migrating through at certain times. I find myself wishing I could add such as a category of bird, length of tail, or kind of beak, wing bars, eye rings, etc. to quickly add more specifics. I should think that there should be a way to quickly add to this app what a birder already knows, in order to make identification much smoother and quicker.

Great app w/ a couple bugs. Different people have recommended this app to me, and I’m glad I finally got it! I’ve been learning about local birds for years now; the app is pretty easy to navigate, but I’m not sure how it would feel if I was brand new to birding. My favorite part has been adding birds to my life list and having access to many different bird calls. If you want to be able to identify birds by their sounds, this is a great place to start. My only frustration has been that it doesn’t always suggest the bird that you’re looking for after putting in the criteria. I sometimes have to go back and adjust the size of the bird or where I saw it in order for it to come up. This has happened mostly with scrub jays and acorn woodpeckers. I’m also not sure why it won’t let me add condors to my list. I’ve seen them several times soaring over southern California mountains but the app doesn’t generate the bird when I put in the criteria. Overall, I’ve definitely enjoyed using the app!

Easy Start to birding. The app is very easy to use and user-friendly and most importantly, it doesn’t complicate things when just starting out the birdwatching experience. I have found using the voice recording/sound recording function is the most helpful tool in finding out the birds that surround me it makes getting answers, quick easy and fun. My only suggestion is that when you are identifying a bird by color type and size, I wish there was a way to just completely start over with one button because by the time you back up from each category, sometimes that bird has gone and flown away and it’s a missed opportunity. this app ignited a new passion of mine for watching birds and enjoy nature around me. It has help center myself and honestly it’s one of the best apps I have ever used!

Brings me so much joy. This app enriches my life is such a huge way. It has made birding feel very accessible and fun/easy to learn. A little less than a year ago, I started using Merlin knowing next to nothing about birds on the recommendation of a friend. I’m now using it daily and able to identify so many birds on my own, which I learned thanks to the incredible sound and picture ID available on here. Birding really helps me to be present and enjoy my surroundings while getting a ton of exercise, and I would definitely not be this into birding had it not been for Merlin. I have an evening routine using Merlin and sister app eBird, where I play a little game of seeing how many birds I can identify on my big neighborhood walk. As a UX nerd I’ll also say the UX design is incredible - the app is so intuitive, easy to use, and minimalistic in a way that reduces distractions while you’re enjoying the outdoors.

I use the sound feature most.. I have tried to do sound Id before by remembering the song and listening when I got home. But this app is amazingly helpful. There are limits though. If the bird is far away the app won’t pick it up. Occasionally I think it may mis-id a bird but if I’m in a new area where I don’t know all the bird songs I don’t really know. But it is loads of fun. Warblers, vireos and other small birds high in the trees that are hard to find in the leaves high up in the trees but are singing I can finally identify. There was a summer tanager that I heard one year in the spring but only saw once and didn’t get a photo. With this app I was finally able to positively ID the bird. Also flyover birds at night were a mystery until this app helped me ID them as Upland Sandpipers. I had heard them for years but never knew what they were.

I am a newbie to Merlin and a lifetime birder.. My house and the trees around it are on the Mississippi flyway here in Memphis. 50% of what I hear I have never seen. I have birds in the upper canopy of the trees and birds in the shrub up to 20 feet high. If I do see the bird, it may only be a glimpse at 150 to 200 feet up through a canopy of tree, trunks and limbs. My problem is I cannot correct mistakes that I make on bird identification “easily”. I clearly hear the bird and it may be in common song with another bird of the same species. Merlin makes the suggestion on what it hears And 10% to 20% of the time it’s incorrect. I cannot find a way to easily correct my mistakes at the point of identification or Merlin’s identification. L O L… I have a peregrine falcon identification that I now know is a red shouldered hawk. I’ve tried for six months to change the identification. All to no avail.

Accurate, Fun, Educational. I cannot say I am much of a bird watcher, but this app definitely encourages me to slow down and pay attention. It makes it very easy to get excited about looking at the birds. If I am outside, I listen to the sounds, watch a little closer, and with the help of the Merlin app I can find out what birds are around me! The step-by-step identification walks you through how to identify your bird and I’m telling you, it is so easy! Just make sure you download the bird pack that matches your area so you can see the photos. After you ID the bird, you can listen to the sounds, read a bit about your bird, and you now have it added to your “life list” to check back with later!! “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

An exceptional app for birders at any level. Wherever I am in the world, this is my go-to app for figuring out what birds I am seeing and/or hearing. The location-specific field guides are wonderful, narrowing down the possibilities readily, and generally doing an excellent job of floating “likely” to the top of the list, relative to “possible”. The sound ID system does pretty darn well in areas with a solid library of recordings. It’s a great tool to get a sense for what is twittering overhead, and aside from a few sound-alikes, it is pretty reliable (just don’t report a red-dot “rare” sound without visual confirmation). The images are generally excellent; the only possible improvement would be to get some standardized poses included for every bird possible (e.g. perched from front, perched from rear, perched from side). But that will probably show up eventually, as the public photo library grows.

Fantastic App AND FUN. Such a great tool to not only identify birds but to learn more about the birds you know by sight. The app will allow you to record a bird sound and identify a bird that way. -or you can take a photo and identify a bird that way. -or you can go step by step and answer simple questions about size and color. -and the app will create a ‘life list’ for you and let you know when you see a bird you haven’t identified before. You can explore the index of birds, and see how a bird looks young and mature, make and female, hear their different calls, learn about their migration pattern and more. So easy and so enjoyable! Major kudos to the wonderful folks at Cornell University that came up with this. I’ve been using the app for years. We had an owl we could hear but not see. Thanks to the sound identification info and tools, we discovered who our owl visitor was! Great app for young and old and everyone in between. Enjoy!

who knew?. I read about this app in the NYT “what to do this weekend” newsletter. The description sounded magical. I tried it and I am thoroughly charmed! As in the article, I go out on my porch, turn on the “sound ID” and see all the amazing birds within earshot! In the morning over coffee and in the evening with a good glass of wine - I am not yet bored - in fact, I look forward to my new porch time pass time! I have learned to recognize sounds i would not have attributed to birds, which I now know as Anna’s Hummingbird and Rufous Hummingbird, as well as a supporting cast of familiar but heretofore unknown mockingbirds, finches, parrots (apparently escaped from a breeder years ago) and even a european starling (? - I live in southern california, so maybe not...). I highly recommend this app if only to increase your awareness of who you are living among - but even more satisfying is to get to know your feathered neighbors just a little better.

Seems infallible in Virginia!. This is about the most interesting application I have downloaded in years, and so far it hasn’t asked me for money! That by itself is quite refreshing—the older one gets, the less one seems to have of disposable income. There are a lot of birds out here—many of them are tiny, but at least they have good lungs and what seems to me an infinite variety of songs to sing. As it was when I first began snorkeling, I feel that a new door has been opened for me in this world I have been living in for so many years. I am very grateful for the opportunity. Somehow it seems to give one an intimacy with the wild birds to be able to know which of them is producing such beautiful sounds: not just a name, but a photograph as well! And as a lifelong photographer, I am very happy the photo ID is included as well—I have always tried scrupulously to identify the birds I have posted for others online, but searches that sometimes used to take days now can be done very nearly instantaneously—and perhaps even more nearly correctly! This is one application that I certainly recommend—for people of all ages. At the very least it gives you a good excuse to sit quietly and focus on all the life around you for a while—and in these times, that can’t be bad!

Favorite App. My husband and I love this app! A friend of ours showed it to us and we’ve had several friends since asked if we had it because they love it too. It is so fun to see which bird it is that is singing a beautiful song in the morning and learning more about them. When we travel, it’s really exciting too, to see all the new types of birds. Also love the drop-down with other recordings of their calls and sounds. The information that they have about each breed is also fun to read. I’ve learned so much by having this app and love birds even more than I did before. I also appreciate them much more too. The only thing I wish that this had was recognition of a hummingbird’s call. We have one that flies around our house all the time and it never picks up its sounds. That may have something to do with phone microphones, not picking it up, too. Otherwise, I love using this app.

New sense of place. Get this app, it will change your experience with all that is around you. I am addicted to Merlin. As a non birder and non presence of mind to think about where I am in the world, it is amazing to have what I take for granted to be given an identity. I used Merlin to better understand my surroundings when I moved. It made the forests richer and gave me an appreciation of place. Now I use when there is an unfamiliar sound. Forest birds are quick, but at least I know what to look for to identify them. It would be nice if they would let you know a bit more about the bird calls, since I fear that when I play some it is a warning and I don’t want to create unnecessary fear. The only notable failure was when my cat meowed and Merlin identified it as a loon, but I think the app was valid in that identification too. Huge thanks to those who made Merlin

Merlin in Arizona. We have used Merlin extensively in Arizona from the southern border to the Kaibab plateau. The sound identification is very useful given it’s panoramic detection capabilities. With this as a guide and a good pair of binoculars I have been able to identify many more birds. The explore features are excellent for regional information and sounds as well as the extensive bird catalogs. A truly wonderful application. It would be nice to be able to upload audio and photo recordings that capture the GPS location and time & date data. This might be useful for migration and species studies. My only complaint is the need to have an internet connection to make a sighting report. I have had numerous sightings I could not report. Many times I do not have internet on the trails or deep in the canyons. I would recommend having the option to use the cellular network as well or allowing reports to be stored for later uploading.

One of the best apps ever. Does exactly what it's meant to do.. Easy to use and amazingly accurate! And that was before the latest update. I downloaded the app after seeing an interesting bird and was trying to identify it. I wasn't a birder, just interested in knowing the name of this pretty bird. It was so easy to use that I started to use it more often just for fun and now I'm an addict! I never knew there were so many fascinating birds in my own backyard. I have rarely been unable to id a bird. The photos are lovely and the recordings of their calls and songs make it possible to figure out what birds are around without having yet seen them. I am now a "birder". If you're even a bit curious about your surroundings, this will give you a whole new perspective and appreciation for the beauty and variety living right outside your window. I only wish they made one for plants and flowers!

Please don't break Accessibility for blind people. This is an absolutely fantastic app! As a lifelong birder I was bummed when I lost the ability to see the birds but by using this app and other similar I now tell Audubon guides what bird they're hearing and put them to shame. Well at least I do in my mind. I'm concerned that someone will update this app with a new feature and break the accessibility that will allow blind people to use voice so for whatever you do for the love of God please make sure you check that before you release any updates that might mangle the Accessibility. The Audubon Society wound up doing that and has never fixed it, and your app is so much more useful anyway that it would be crushing for the tens of thousands of blind people that use this app to remain doing what they love and listening to the birds and building their lists