Merlin

 Merlin is the new great thing for birders.  Well, not 2025 new, but still new.  It is an app that records the birds I am hearing and then guesses what they are.  It is wonderful, as long as you don't trust it.  Merlin has recorded hundreds of thousands of bird songs and makes suggestions.  My job is to decide how accurate the guesses are.  Right now I can go into my yard and hear tiny peeps everywhere.  Merlin records them.  Sometimes it takes the easy route and calls them Yellow-rumped Warblers.  Often they are.  Other times it stretches itself and says it can hear the Yellow-rumped Warblers, Chipping Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows and White-crowned Sparrows and then it may even throw in an Orange-crowned Warbler, a Song Sparrow and perhaps even a Dark-eyed Junco.  All the while I am hearing these same tiny peeps everywhere.  Merlin and I have to work together.  My favourite moment is when I think I recognize a sound, like a distant Red-breasted Nuthatch and look down at my phone and Merlin is saying Red-breasted Nuthatch.  For someone with a really bad memory for bird songs, that is an exciting moment.  And I trust Merlin. 

Until I look further.  Just above the Red-breasted Nuthatch it says Marsh Wren.  There is about a 1% chance there was actually a Marsh Wren in my garden.  Northern House Wren, extremely possible.  I expect they sound similar. 

After a while Merlin took a giant step forward and said it will identify birds from photos.  Yesterday I took photos of photos (on my computer) and asked Merlin's suggestion.  The first one was a vireo, I knew that much, but which vireo?  A  Warbling Vireo?  I recognize their song but birds are less likely to sing in the fall and this one wasn't.  Or maybe it was a Philadelphia Vireo.  Less likely but still possible.  The first photo I loaded brought up the Warbling Vireo as first suggestion and Philadelphia as second.  

 So I tried a different photo of the same bird.  This time it suggested Philadelphia first, Warbling second.  I was right back where I started.

 

Then I went for a bird I couldn't ID at all.

 

Merlin suggested Blackpoll Warbler.  I was shocked.  This is the Blackpoll warbler I saw in May 2016.

But then I looked further and discovered that first year birds look completely different.  Like this photo I stole from ebird.

 

Now that is when Merlin is really helpful. 

Lifer!

 On our way to Saskatoon a few days ago, I checked the Ebird list for the city to see what people had been seeing and saw the mention of a bird I'd long wished for.  Ever since a friend who doesn't like birds, (have you ever heard of such a thing?) sent me a photo of a Long-eared Owl taken on their property, it has been on my target list.  

We showed up at the site about 4:30 pm, not the ideal time to see an owl but the sightings I'd read about were all in the daytime.  No one had said where in the park the owls had been seen (did I mention there were 4 juveniles as well as a parent or two?) so we walked through the part of the park we guessed they might be in and peered into the trees without luck.  Then we met a dog walker who said the three times (!) he'd seen any of the owls they'd been in different parts of the park and high in the trees.  We wandered around some more, peering high into the trees, then took a short path off the main trail and Ray saw a young owl.

Minutes later the granddaughter with us found an adult much lower in a tree than I had been looking.

I tried to get into a position where I could get the twig out of the face, but the owl was not in favour.  Maybe next time.