New phone app lets you ID birds by song

New phone app IDs birds by song

Now you can use your cellphone to identify birds by the sounds they make. Capture the song or call with your phone, and let Merlin do the ID work. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology bird identification app known as Merlin now identifies the sounds of 458 species of North American birds. This new tool comes with the popular and free Merlin bird app. Find it at Apple's app store or Google Play. The sound addition is brand-new, made in late June.

In a brief trial in our backyard, Merlin correctly identified a nuthatch, red-winged blackbird, cardinal, great crested flycatcher, crow, song sparrow and common yellowthroat, a bird I did not hear, which means the software made a mistake or my aged ears didn't hear it, the latter much more likely. (I heard the other calls, confirming Merlin.)

Jim Williams

A downy woodpecker left the nest cavity after delivering food to chicks.

Case for nest boxes

Birds nest where they find opportunity. Setting can be unimportant. A daughter and her family live on a typical suburban lot in Plymouth. It has two large shade trees and some shrubbery. The neighboring lots are similar. Last year they had nesting Cooper's hawks. This year, nesting downy woodpeckers, chickadees and house wrens, the latter two in nest boxes. Above, one of the woodpeckers leaves the nest cavity after delivering food to chicks. Nest boxes are a good idea, particularly for cavity nesters like chickadees and wrens. Holes in trees are in short supply.

About baby birds

I recently suggested that baby birds found on the ground should be left to the care of their parents. I should have added that I was talking about birds almost old enough to fledge, leave the nest on their own. If the birds are truly babies as opposed to toddlers, that's different. If the birds are helpless, perhaps fallen from a damaged nest, they need help. Do not make a heroic effort with a ladder. Call the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota, 651-486-9453. You might have to make a trip to the center in Roseville. Better that than a trip to the hospital after a trip up a ladder.

Six birds for every human

It has been estimated that there are about six birds on Earth for each of us humans. That comes to a bit shy of 50 billion birds, according to work done at the University of New South Wales, Australia. The study was based on eBird reports from around the world, almost a billion of them. Minnesota birders use eBird, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology online data collection program, contributing to this first-of-its-kind effort. These data were combined with other information to create an algorithm that gave the estimate for each individual bird species.

The study found four bird species with estimated population of more than a billion. And all of them can be seen in Minnesota! They are house sparrow, European starling, ring-billed gull and barn swallow.

Does the study from Australia mean that we have so many birds as not to worry? No, it does not. The study determined that approximately 12% of all bird species, 1,180, have populations of fewer than 5,000. Other species are in decline. If a species has a total population under 2,500, the International Union for Conservation of Nature would label it an endangered species. None of the issues birds face are reduced or eliminated based on this study.

If you go online, the National Audubon Society will tell you that the most numerous bird species in the world is the nomadic red-billed quelea, its estimated population 1.5 billion. Found in sub-Saharan Africa, the sparrow-sized bird is a member of the weaver family. A colony of these birds can cover hundreds of acres. Flocks seen at a distance can be mistaken for smoke. It is an agricultural terror. Like our extinct passenger pigeon, the weight of flocks of queleas landing in a tree can break branches.

If you want to count any bird species, wild or domestic, the common chicken wins wings down. There are an estimated 29.5 billion chickens, both egg layers and those used for sandwiches, fingers, nuggets, and dinner.

'Wear' binoculars before purchase

A very short list of factors to consider when buying binoculars: First, try them on. Do they fit your hands? How heavy are they? Think of your neck and shoulders after a couple of hours in the field. Cost is a consideration, of course, less so today than a few years ago because the cost of quality has come way down. Buy locally so you can hold the binoculars, look through them and put them around your neck before you pay. Locally, questions and returns are easily handled. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a good question-answer page at allaboutbirds.org (search for binoculars). Most of us make the binocular investment infrequently. Make it a good one.

Jim Williams