I recently download an app that uses AI to identify bird calls.
Merlin Bird ID
Merlin is amazing. I heard birds outside my new apartment and thought of them as nice background noise. Within days of installing Merlin, I could tell sparrows, cardinals and robins apart without seeing them. Whenever I heard a new bird, I’d grab my phone and open Merlin.
One day it sounded like a robin and a cardinal were having and argument while both simultaneously having a stroke. Merlin figured out it was a catbird, a relative of the mockingbird that learns the songs of other birds then strings pieces of them together in a disorganized song to impress the ladies. Basically, the male catbird who can sing the weirdest songs using the most species signals that he has “been around” for enough seasons to learn all those songs and therefore must have good genes the females want to pass on. It’s mind blowing to learn all this about things that are going on outside your window.
I’ve been wanting to give this a try. It uses the same AI as Merlin but runs on a raspberryPI.
Pretty sure this thread exists because of Merlin. Half the people I know seem to be on it
Sometimes when you look at pigeons they look back
How dare they! I gave grain to their fucking mothers!
You can rest assured that they’ve been watching you for your entire life.
The neighbours hand raised this abandoned baby starling a few years ago, so it had decided everyone in the neighbourhood was his best friend too, and used to visit me, sit on top of my head and sing, demand bugs and berries, and tease our dog. It got so I could pick its voice out in the tree, and would come and sit on the kitchen window and yell at us to come outside.
Hello fellow big featherless birds!
My grandma got me into birding when I was a young child. My friends always text me pictures of birds like it’s a quiz. Maybe this means they’ll start to catch up.
No shit. This happened to me this year. A bird crossed my path while I was running and I had to double take because it was so cool looking. Now I look forward because I see him pretty often now. Ever since I check birds out all the time now
Acquiring birds.
“Look Raymond, a yellow crested warbler”
No you’re too excited the warbler’s a common bird.
Plane watching is basically birdwatching for nerds.
I’m close to YUL and often check flightradar24 ☺️
I recently found out that a monthly pass on my city’s transit system, which I have, is exempt from the extra charge when going to the airport (YVR), so hell yeah I’m taking advantage of that! They have two really cool observation areas outside security where you can see the gates and runway.
Shit, it hurts bad, since COVID I took “birdnet” and check all birds, it’s so cool!
Bird identification is so fun with how easy it is to find them now! I love the Merlin app for identifying birds. It can also find birds as by their song in real time which is super cool.
This is what birdnet is doing, you record a bird and it tells you what it is :)
I really regret opening Lemmy after staring at a procession of magpies hopping past my window now.
They know
This made me laugh. I’m in my early 40s and in the past six months I’ve been using the Merlin app to identify birds by their song. It’s really fun to see what’s going on around me in terms of birds. I had no interest before.
What kind have you spotted?
The craziest bird sighting I made was a pileated woodpecker. Man those things are big!
My 63yo mom likes to memorize birds names in the same way 90s kids did with pokemons. I think she does it since she was a child. When we’re taking a walk together she points to the birds and say their names. And I learn to much with her, I love when she does it!
That is exactly me with plants over the pandemic. Natives are cool as shit.
Oooh love native plants.
More Jesse v cancer please Mr case!
