Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

About this app

What's that bird? Ask Merlin—the world’s leading app for birds. Just like magic, Merlin Bird ID will help you solve the mystery.

Merlin Bird ID helps you identify birds you see and hear. Merlin is unlike any other bird app—it's powered by eBird, the world’s largest database of bird sightings, sounds, and photos.

Merlin offers four fun ways to identify birds. Answer a few simple questions, upload a photo, record a singing bird, or explore birds in a region.

Whether you’re curious about a bird you’ve seen once or you’re hoping to identify every bird you can find, the answers are waiting for you with this free app from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

WHY YOU’LL LOVE MERLIN
• Expert ID tips, range maps, photos, and sounds help you learn about the birds you spot and build birding skills.
• Customized lists of birds to find where you live or travel
• Merlin was created by bird experts for everyone.
• Merlin is global—look up any bird at any location.
• Keep track of your sightings—linked to eBird, a global database of more than 1 billion bird observations!


MACHINE LEARNING MAGIC
• Powered by Visipedia, Merlin Sound ID and Photo ID uses deep learning to identify birds in photos and sounds. Merlin learns to recognize bird species based on training sets of millions of photos and sounds collected by birders at eBird.org, archived in the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
• Merlin delivers the most accurate results thanks to experienced birders, who curate and annotate sightings, photos, and sounds, who are the true magic behind Merlin.

AMAZING CONTENT
• Choose bird packs that contain photos, songs, and calls, and identification help for anywhere in the world, including Mexico, Costa Rica, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, Australia, Korea, Japan, China, and more.
• It’s available in your language. Merlin is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Hebrew, German, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s goal is to help you and millions of others to learn about birds. Our nonprofit mission to improve the understanding and protection of birds and nature is made possible by the generosity of Cornell Lab members, supporters, and citizen-science contributors.

Ratings and reviews

Excellent resource to have, especially if you are traveling somewhere that you aren't familiar with the bird life. I've you download the correct bird pack, you can use it while it in the most remote areas! Identify by sounds, photos, or just exploring the lists. So easy to use! And you can keep track of your sightings for your life list!

This is the best app for all bird enthusiasts. It not only helps identify the bird of interest with photo ID and sound ID, but it also provides a list of all local birds with matching photos, recorded songs, and maps for a quick look-up. I personally have learned so much about the birds in my area via sounds and looks, all thanks to this app.

This app makes identifying birds really easy and is a great tool. There is a flaw in it though. When you make a recording and then delete it, it doesn't really delete the recording and saves the file in your music folder which eventually will eat up your phone's memory. To me delete means delete, not have it stashed in s my recordings folder.

What's new

Updated Sound ID Model (v34): Merlin can now identify over 1200 species by sound! We added over 150 new species to sound ID in this update, including fan-favorites like Wilson’s Plover, Flame-colored Tanager, and New Zealand Fantail.
New Languages: Merlin is now available in Thai and Danish!
Bug Fixes: We’re working to make the Merlin experience smoother, and added fixes for a few pesky bugs related to location services and the Life List page.