Date: 4/28/24 8:15 pm From: Fred Schroyer <ibfreditor...> Subject: Re: Merlin doesn't know the Red-Shouldered Hawk?
Thanks to everyone who commented on my post re Merlin not recognizing a red-shouldered hawk. Very informative and helpful for you all to share your thoughts and experience! I'm new to Merlin, and overall I find it amazingly quick and accurate. It's quite educational for me, as I've never been adept at birding-by-ear. It's teaching me calls. I tried an experiment: I played a bunch of Youtube birdcall videos on my laptop, while running Merlin to see what it could identify. I tried the common winter songbirds and a bunch of raptors. Despite the compression & audio processing those videos have undergone, Merlin overall did very well, including with the raptors . . . except the red-shouldered hawk! Apparently I stumbled onto the one raptor it could not recognize, even when playing a variety of videos of the red-shoulder's cries. Regardless, Merlin is a valuable tool that I'm glad we all have!
