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.
• Discover a new bird species each day with your own personalized Bird of the Day
• Get customized lists of birds you can find where you live or travel - anywhere in the world!
• Keep track of your sightings—build your personal list of the birds you find

MACHINE LEARNING MAGIC
• Powered by Visipedia, Merlin Sound ID and Photo ID uses machine 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.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s mission is to interpret and conserve the Earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds and nature. We are able to offer Merlin for free thanks to the generosity of Cornell Lab members, supporters, and citizen-science contributors.

Ratings and reviews

Nice interface for recording and identifying birds. Pictures and background info are good. The managing of the life list and the recordings is a bit disjointed. You cannot view recordings from your life list. Saving birds in your life list is cumbersome with adding locations. why do I need to add a location name? And afterwards these location names are gone anyways.

Very fun and works very well. My only suggestion currently: Allow us to spot a specific bird from a list of previously found birds. Right now, if I know exactly what type of bird I saw, I still have to either get a picture, sound recording or experiment with the step-by-step ID settings to actually have it count as "spotted here and there"

I enjoy using this app. You can identify birds by sound, photo, or a visual description. It has photos of the birds in different stages, migration maps, and interesting details about each bird. You can download packs based on where you live or are traveling to. I live in the lower 48 but have also used it in Alaska and the Dominican Republic. I already have the European pack downloaded for my trip next month.

What’s new

- ID Tips: Enjoy bite-sized bits of birding joy as you listen! While running Sound ID, keep an eye out for short videos and photos that will help you identify and learn more about the birds you are hearing.
- Improved Search on Explore Species: Discover bird species near you, at different times of the year, and in any other location in the world with a new, expanded search feature!
- Sound ID now includes hundreds of new species in Central and South America, India, Taiwan, and Australia!