Flying Colors: The Fascinating Tech Behind Merlin, The Bird ID App

OnlineFeatures
Written By Jillian Anthony

Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

The fascinating tech behind Merlin, the bird ID app
Flying Colors, 2023

In June 2021, the Merlin app launched Sound ID, a way for people to instantly identify the birds around them by allowing their phone to listen to the calls and songs happening nearby. Now people can use Merlin to ID birds through sound, photographs, or even physical description, technology that’s delighted the app’s tens of thousands of users. But eBird users may not know it was their amateur photographs and sound recordings (about a million of them) that made this innovation possible.

Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

Jillian Anthony
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