Date: 5/5/25 5:43 am From: Steve <sshultz...> Subject: Re: Merlin app vs. Mockingbird
Absolutely! I love Merlin, and often recommend it to folks getting interested in birding, but I always give the big caveat that it’s right 90% of the time.
I was doing an introduction to birding walk at work recently and was demonstrating Merlin. It was actually a really good example because it said there was a Gadwall (right there in the middle of the woods!)
I do see sometimes that folks submit bird lists to eBird based on Merlin identifications, which I would always caution against, and not saying you’re doing this, just using this as a platform to note.
For example, eBird shows that we have Worm-eating warblers breeding here in suburban Cary 😀 (summer records after migration)
Merlin is picking up Chipping Sparrow and folks are submitting based on what Merlin says.
Steve Shultz
> On May 5, 2025, at 8:33 AM, scompton1251 <scompton1251...> wrote:
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> Birders
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> Just now on my deck my Merlin app identified about 7 species from sound, including a Swainson's Warbler. I am .7 miles from our swamp and have not heard one there yet this Spring. A Mockingbird is singing his catalogue
> of birdsong. Could Merlin have taken an imitation to be the real thing?
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> Thanks,
> Steve Compton
> On new ground in Dorchester, SC.
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> Sent from my Galaxy
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