Merlin App Identification reliable ? South County Dublin regularly identified birds (1 Viewer)

[Thegeezer9999]

Hi

I am new to this forum, so I hope this is posted in correct place. I am living in a place not far from the Irish sea, Dublin Mountains, and the wetlands around Kilbogget Park. I am querying if he recordings I take daily from the window (back and front windows seem to produce different species) are likely to be real or not, since I am rarely able to see the birds in question. Regularly recorded are : Eurasian/Green-winged teal (almost every session - front and back), common buzzard, northern lapwing, common reed bunting, redwing (all the time), meadow pipit, common sandpiper, eurasian oystercatcher, grey wagtail, siskin, eurasian jay, grey wagtail, barn swallow, coal tit, bullfinch, mistle thrush, eurasian curlew,
Others I have picked up very occasionally include : Common snipe, eurasian blackcap, goldcrest, common raven, peregrine falcon, grey plover, gadwall (!), great northern diver.
I do listen back and compare them to the included bird songs, ans generally they do match, I am just gobsmacked at how may species we appear to have here !
I would welcome the views of the more experienced members as to whether these are false poitives, and if not, how I might go about seeing some of them (I have fairly decent bins) ?

Thank you

 

[THE_FERN]

Hi

I am new to this forum, so I hope this is posted in correct place. I am living in a place not far from the Irish sea, Dublin Mountains, and the wetlands around Kilbogget Park. I am querying if he recordings I take daily from the window (back and front windows seem to produce different species) are likely to be real or not, since I am rarely able to see the birds in question. Regularly recorded are : Eurasian/Green-winged teal (almost every session - front and back), common buzzard, northern lapwing, common reed bunting, redwing (all the time), meadow pipit, common sandpiper, eurasian oystercatcher, grey wagtail, siskin, eurasian jay, grey wagtail, barn swallow, coal tit, bullfinch, mistle thrush, eurasian curlew,
Others I have picked up very occasionally include : Common snipe, eurasian blackcap, goldcrest, common raven, peregrine falcon, grey plover, gadwall (!), great northern diver.
I do listen back and compare them to the included bird songs, ans generally they do match, I am just gobsmacked at how may species we appear to have here !
I would welcome the views of the more experienced members as to whether these are false poitives, and if not, how I might go about seeing some of them (I have fairly decent bins) ?

Thank you

There's no alternative to learning the calls, at least well enough to be able to assess if Merlin is right. I use it to confirm common species like this. Xeno canto is a good source for alternative recordings, and there are other apps (mentioned on the forum) which would give a second opinion. Important to bear in mind that sometimes there's just not enough information to definitely id something and (in a few cases like blackcap) mimicry complicates things

 

[Thegeezer9999]

There's no alternative to learning the calls, at least well enough to be able to assess if Merlin is right. I use it to confirm common species like this. Xeno canto is a good source for alternative recordings, and there are other apps (mentioned on the forum) which would give a second opinion. Important to bear in mind that sometimes there's just not enough information to definitely id something and (in a few cases like blackcap) mimicry complicates things

Hi The_Fern

Thank you for the prompt response. In the absence of actually being able to see the birds, I do check to make sure the sound I am hearing matches the sounds included in the Merlin app for the bird before I upload anything to eBird, I guess that is as much as I can do right now. Also the AI which Merlin uses should result in an increase in accuracy of identification over time, so the app also has that going for it.

Regards

 

[THE_FERN]

Hi The_Fern

Thank you for the prompt response. In the absence of actually being able to see the birds, I do check to make sure the sound I am hearing matches the sounds included in the Merlin app for the bird before I upload anything to eBird, I guess that is as much as I can do right now. Also the AI which Merlin uses should result in an increase in accuracy of identification over time, so the app also has that going for it.

Regards

The main issue is the species which sound similar or which make identical sounds in some circumstances. Things like treecreeper, crests. If you know what the app is "hearing" at the time you can decide how right it's likely to be

 

[THE_FERN]

I should also note that Merlin fails to pick up some sounds I can hear perfectly well. That might just be a reflection of my phone of course. It also fails to identify some calls entirely even though it must hear them. These tend to be generic "chip" sounds that are hard to differentiate

 

[Thegeezer9999]

Agree with both comments. We are surrounded here by gulls and yet Merlin almost never picks up their frenetic screeching !!
I am now trying to watch and listen at same time but not easy when the more common birds take over the screen. In fact I have submitted a feature request to “forget” birds which you configure as “common birds” (still captures sound but does not show them on screen).
Thanks for your replies !

 

[Ruff-Leg]

Merlin needs really good signal-to-noise ratio to identify the bird. Remember, it's analyzing the spectrogram in 3 second chunks, not the audio directly. A distant bird in a quiet setting will be more easily identified than one gull in a cacophony because of the better SNR.

Check Merlin's settings - you will see that it only has 1382 species in its library at present - you will be able to look at this list and figure out how relevant it is to your area.

Let's face it, your phone's microphone wasn't designed for directional bird recordings! I find that a plug-in microphone (such as a Rode VideoMic Me) really helps out.

HTH

 

[Thegeezer9999]

Thanks Ruff-leg, this tallies with the delay in “hearing a bird” and the addition of the bird. I place the phone on an open window to give it best chance of picking up all birds, and average number over say 10 minutes in morning is around 10-15 (less later in day). I will always listen to spectrogram a few times to be sure it matches the recordings provided in Merlin.
I am just astounded at the number of different types of birds in this area !!