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

Easily my favourite app in my phone! I've gotten great at identifying birds without even having to pull it out every time. The sound ID feature is my favourite, I can use it to identify what I'm hearing and then I know what I'm trying to look for! It's very accurate and is great for both backyard birding and going out in the mountains!

Great app, easy to use and very helpful for bird ID/keeping a life list! Two critiques: I've had a few experiences where I was able to identify a bird but it was not listed by the app for that location. It would be nice to be able to add identifications manually. I'd also like to be able to access a map with all of my identifications. It makes you enter the location of your ID's, but there is nowhere to look at that information on a map afterward, which would be a great feature.

I love this app. It makes identifying local birds so easy. Identifying them by their sound takes a bit of patience, less background noise is going to help you a great deal. I have a nearby highway and the software records beautifully but the hum of tires makes it difficult for it to work correctly. I'm sure it will improve with time, keep up the terrific work!

What's new

Updates to My Sound Recordings screen to quickly explore and manage your recordings:
- Quickly view the top species
- Search by species, location, and filename
- Sort by date, recording length, and file name
- Select multiple recordings to share or delete
New: App Language selector in settings