Merlin

I'd been meaning to download the Merlin app to my phone ever since my lovely friend, who blogs at Crimson Kettle, mentioned it back in March. Merlin helps you to identify the birds you see or hear. I finally downloaded the app just over a month ago and I've been enjoying using it since.

The first thing I did was sit in the garden for a couple of minutes while I recorded the birds I could hear. Just in that short time (less than two minutes) it identified house sparrows, greenfinches, starlings, blackbirds and wrens.

A couple of days later we went for a short walk down the lane which runs at the top of our street. There's houses and stables running along one side and farmland along the other, at the bottom it opens out into woodland but we didn't get that far. We walked for half a mile, turned round and walked the half mile back again and the app identified the calls of sparrows, starlings, chiffchaffs, blackbirds, wrens, robins, greenfinches, goldfinches, dunnocks, blackcaps, collared-doves, blue tits and skylarks.

It's fun seeing what birds the app identifies on our different walks. We visited RSBP St.Aidan's, a nature reserve a few miles from where we live. There, the app picked up reed buntings, cetti's warblers, black-headed gulls, moorhens, coots, swifts, reed warblers, willow warblers, blackbirds, robins, greater whitethroats, blackcaps, sedge warblers, wood-pigeons, chiffchaffs and dunnocks.

We often see different birds on our walks at Lotherton. We did a two mile walk one afternoon and the app picked up wrens, blackbirds, robins, rooks, chiffchaffs, blackcaps, chaffinches, great tits, wood-pigeons, yellowhammers, firecrests, song thrushes and blue tits. 

I thought it would be fun to see what seabirds the app picked up at RSPB Bempton Cliffs. Unfortunately, there's an error and the app won't allow me access to the list of birds recorded, however, it was rather disappointing as there's literally hundreds or thousands of gannets, guillemots and razorbills there but it didn't record any of these. It did pick up common gulls, eiders, kittiwakes as well as skylarks, house sparrows, tree sparrows, reed buntings and blackbirds in the surrounding fields from what I can remember, as well as some others which have now escaped my memory.

I'd only recorded in the garden for a couple of minutes so I decided I'd try the garden again. I sat out there for ten minutes this time and the calls of house sparrows, chiffchaffs, blackbirds, goldfinches, magpies, kingfishers, linnets, thrushes starlings, greenfinches and wrens registered this time.

There are birds we see which the app doesn't pick up, for instance at St.Aidan's we saw ducks and geese but the app didn't pick up their call, though I have to say that they were remarkably quiet as we walked by. I've seen nuthatches and treecreepers at Lotherton but unless they're singing, the app won't register them. We have red kites flying over our house every day, we often hear their distinctive call, I must turn the app on and see if it picks those up.

Knowing what birds are around is becoming a bit of an obsession. Do you use the Merlin app?