The Merlin app for your cell phone is the most important tool for bird watchers since the invention of binoculars! The app, which is free, is able to identify a bird by description, photo, or sound. Identification by description is a little hit and miss because it depends on your ability to provide an accurate description. Photo ID is very accurate, but it requires that you are able to provide a bird photo. Sound ID is by far the easiest to use and gives you an instant reward, a bird identification without any requirement of bird knowledge.
My wife, Jeanette, and I lead bird walks here at Dallas Retirement Village where we live. DRV provides a bus and driver for us to take residents out to local parks twice a week every other week. Using the Merlin app has really caught on this year, and we now have 100% participation by the birders. I wish you could see the smile on their faces as a bird identification flashes on their cell phone screen. You don't have to be a bird expert to identify the bird that you hear singing its heart out high in a nearby tree, our hidden in some thick bushes.
Of course, you need to use some caution. For example, if you are in a location where there is no cell reception, I have found because the phone has no idea where you are, you can get a species that is in truth not found in the general area. But the majority of the time Merlin will provide an accurate identification. The best advice is to use Merlin as a notification tool, tipping you off to search closer for a visual confirmation. It is a great teaching tool. We have discovered as time goes on; we have begun to recognize the bird sound ourselves, and sometimes even before Merlin.
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