[toddm]

Irrespective of other comments, please do support eBird and Merlin, both freely available from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO).

I am not associated with the CLO other than as a supporter; they do great work and birders come in as many varieties as birds, including me. The flow of data to organizations such as the CLO is critical and these glasses might help augment that.

The data gathering aspect and mapping bird migratory patterns, populations, and other information from AI-enabled field glasses (as well as the apps and other, as there is image recognition in the aforementioned apps and probably many more I'm not aware of) would be quite helpful for a better understanding of how environmental change affects animal populations.

[twelvechairs]

iNaturalist is the other big one - covers all manner of life (not just birds) and much less US focussed. Though not as good as Merlin at ID and birders seem to be split on logging to iNat or eBird - many will log to both

[yaky]

Seek (by iNaturalist) is a good (and fun) app too, it visually identifies all kinds of things (plants, fungi, animals), and integrates with iNaturalist very well.

It works offline, and although not perfect, it is impressive just how much different stuff it has been trained on, and how much you can id even in your own backyard.

[thaumasiotes]

> Seek (by iNaturalist) is a good (and fun) app too, it visually identifies all kinds of things (plants, fungi, animals), and integrates with iNaturalist very well.

I left a comment in another thread a while ago complaining that Seek doesn't seem especially concerned with whether its identifications are correct. It was not well received.

I can now substantiate that with species-level identifications provided by Seek, where I have independent knowledge of what I'm looking at. I took several pictures of elephant seals.

For two of them, Seek was willing to make a species-level identification and give me credit for encountering that species.

One was identified as a New Zealand fur seal.

The other was a clouded monitor lizard.

[yaky]

Yes, it's very apparent that it was trained on specific images, e.g. pointing camera at a window insect screen will assume "insect", and a pile of dry leaves is either "mammals" or "tinamous". My orange cat who lays with front paws crossed is a domestic dog (because dogs lay like that). But an aphid colony and specific lichens are identified almost immediately.

In my experience, it's best for small static things, like fungi, lichens, some plants and insects.

Merlin sound ID, too, can produce false identifications (e.g: my relative fooling around was a marsh wren), and I've seen birders frown upon "Identified by Merlin" rare birds posted to eBird.

[pbhjpbhj]

With Merlin do you need particularly clean loud audio? I've recorded a few sound clips with it: Whilst I can clearly hear at least 4 distinct bird calls in one clip (and recognise a couple), Merlin just doesn't ever recognise any birds at all. I've downloaded a sound pack. I've searched a few times but not found useful help nor even a clip of the app in operation (eg with tips for how to do captures). Any help appreciated, thanks.

Is it better or worse than a human at recognition? Do you need 'perfect' birdsong samples or is there likely something buggy with my install?

[joshuahedlund]

Where are you located? It doesn’t support everywhere on the globe yet.

If you’re in a supported area I would suggest just trying it some more. I use it almost daily in the US; I don’t usually save recordings I just tap Sound ID and then cancel it after I get suggestions. It doesn’t always pick up far away birds when they are soft and there is competing noise, and it can get confused by some of the mocking/mimic birds, but it’s generally fantastic at hearing all kinds of sounds despite numerous imperfections and variance in quality.

[pbhjpbhj]

Thanks for your response; sorry, yes, I'm in UK. From that it sounds like it's not working properly for me; will try it on a different device. Cheers.

[mistrial9]

somehow I hope that there is synergy and not destructive, artificial competition between "apps" that do basic nature positive things.. like, does it really need to be "winner take all the AI chat help bots" or something weird like that? hope not

[dylan604]

I just compared the 2 apps on the app store. Seek claims the only data used is location and media (images/video). Merlin links identifiers, location, usage data, and contact info.

So, one is either not listing all of the data they harvest from you, or one is a really cool app. I have a feeling both apps are not being fully honest.

[justincormack]

They are both run by charities unlike some of the apps in this field. Seek is aimed at children and so collects as little data as possible. It can upload to iNaturalist but only if you connect accounts. Merlin doesn’t collect the data unless you create an account either I don’t believe.

[rmnclmnt]

Does anyone know if Merlin Bird Photo ID model has ever been released as open-source?

I am aware of the BirdNET singing ID model being publicly available (the research paper is great for ML and DSP oriented people), but cannot find the same open research for Merlin.

[theultdev]

none of these work in my area, mockingbirds confuse the hell out of it haha

they register through like 10-15 calls, a lot of birds not even from the region, they get around!

[wt__]

In the UK we have the “BirdTrack” app, which is run by the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) and also something called iRecord (actually a massive Drupal database…) which covers everything including mammals.

[tiimbz]

I use the IOS app BirdNET for this - also using the same dataset from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Highly recommended.