Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
In our modern world, surrounded Computers, Phones, Tablets, Smart watches And so many other devices that constantly demand our attention, it can be difficult to ground ourselves in the present moment. To combat this, I often resort to Meditation apps to Breathing exercises Calm words help me return to the here and now. Although effective, I was surprised to find that another app was often more successful at keeping me steady.
Launched in 2014 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Merlin Baird ID It is designed to help people identify birds around them using recorded sounds, answering a series of questions or uploading photos. To do this, it uses eBird, the world’s largest database of bird sounds and images based on 800 million views worldwide. You can also use the app to explore Different birds In your area, regardless of your location – including when you’re offline.
The home page of the application contains three methods of identification.
One of my favorite features of Merlin Bird ID is that you can use the app to track your bird sightings, and like the IRL Pokemon GO game, you can “collect them all.”
Don’t miss any of our unbiased technical content and lab reviews. Add CNET As Google’s preferred source.
The first time I used the app, I sat on my porch, clicked the green “sound” button and watched the app identify birds chirping and chirping in all directions. You can see different audio frequencies as they appear on a real-time spectrogram, a visual representation of the world of sound. The next time I looked at the clock, I was shocked to see that an hour had passed. Then I took out my binoculars and let some more fly by.
What the spectrogram looks like on the app.
As any Merlin Bird IDer knows, there’s no thrill like pressing the “this is my bird” button for the first time, and it never gets old. From there, you can register your location. The application will in turn save your report to improve its performance.
It wasn’t long before I memorized the sounds of different birds. In the morning, I would wake up to the sound of the California Toohey alarm and, frankly, yes, the annoying chirp from the tree outside my window as the sun began to rise. Walking around my neighborhood, I would acoustically separate the sound of cars and distant construction to hear the tune of House Finches mixed with the intermittent chirping of a little goldfinch and the cooing of a hummingbird from a pair of mourning doves religiously perched on electrical wires. The song was the soundtrack to my world, but I hadn’t noticed it until now.
By sight, I could recognize the red-whiskered bulbul with its black mane and fire engine-like cheeks, a blush waiting to be replicated in powder form. Black Phoebes were known for their delicate, soot-black heads, statuesque stillness, and ivory bellies. At the hummingbird feeder on my porch, there’s an endless line of customers with throats iridescent in the colors of the sunset: Anna’s hummingbirds (my favorite, as you might imagine), Allen and even the uncommon Rufus, who spend all day fighting over sugary water when they’re not watching the feeder from their magnolia perches.
A customer at our feeder. I think it’s Allen’s hummingbird.
What’s even more exciting is when the Merlin Bird app hears a bird you can’t see, making you feel as if your mission is to hunt for treasure on your way to it. This is often a lesson in patience, as it may take several attempts to find the songbird you are looking for. Recently, while sitting in a new-to-me park, the app told me Mountain Chickadee was nearby and I spent the next 45 minutes trying to spot it with my binoculars. It ended up on a branch right above my head, and when I got up to leave, it flew right next to my face as if it knew the joke that it had been there the whole time.
I’ve yet to find the red-winged blackbird that always seems just out of my reach, no matter where I am in my city, but I do console myself with the seemingly all-knowing flock of common crows (also unfairly called “cruelty”) on my street and the astonishing number of noises they can make.
Birds I haven’t spotted yet.
I also often hear the hoots of the great horned owl singing a lullaby at 9:30pm just before the start of spring. I like to travel back in time to these moments, although I have come across some funny conversations in retrospect that I inadvertently recorded between the chirping birds. With that being said, Merlin Bird ID does save your audio recordings however Only on your device in the app. To share recordings with eBird, you must export and upload them manually.
I now search for unexplored woodland spaces to meet new feathered friends, an excuse for forest bathing, which led me to see the unique shade of blue of the Ruddy Duck’s beak. After a rainstorm, I came across a group of Oak Woodpeckers with magnificent Red Mohawks pecking excitedly on the soft, wet wood while calling to each other. Like a conversation between best friends over dinner. My area is known for its large flocks of Amazon parrots (and their incessant screaming), which I now had the pleasure of seeing up close as they use their bright yellow beaks to climb trees and gather berries. And once, just once, I caught the butt of a yellow warbler in a nearby watershed park.
Acorn woodpecker
Because of this app, I spent more time listening to the world around me and less time in my head, switching between the past and the future. I found myself surrounded by and talking to nature more than ever before. This is probably the closest thing we have to magic here on Earth. Now, maybe this is the key to grounding yourself: to put your butt on the ground and take the time to listen to those singing around you.