Merlin Bird Photo ID

At one time or another, everyone asks the question, “What is that bird?”

Finding the answer can be remarkably challenging. Part of the mission of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is to help people find that answer. We know it is hard to figure out the name of the bird you saw when sorting through a massive field guide, using search engines, and other resources.
Merlin is designed to be a birding coach for beginning and intermediate bird watchers.

Merlin asks you the same questions that an expert birder would ask to help solve a mystery bird sighting. Notice that date and location are Merlin’s first and most important questions. It takes years of experience in the field to know what species are expected at a given location and date. Merlin shares this this knowledge with you based on more than 70 million sightings submitted to eBird from birders across the United States and Canada.

Merlin also asks you to describe the color, size, and behavior of the bird you saw. Because no two people describe birds exactly the same way, Merlin presents a shortlist of possible species based on descriptions from Cornell Lab experts as well as thousands of bird enthusiasts who helped “teach” Merlin by participating in online activities. They’ve contributed more than 3 million descriptors to help Merlin match your input with the most likely birds. When you identify a species and click “This is My Bird,” Merlin also saves your record to help improve its future performance.

We launched Merlin with 285 species most commonly encountered in North America. Our goal is to add more species and more features to keeping improving Merlin’s accuracy through time. High on our wish list is a prompt enabling you to give Merlin a hint about the shape or type of bird you saw (e.g., songbird, shorebird, raptor). We appreciate your feedback about what’s working for you, what isn’t, and features you’d like to see. If you’d like to support our efforts to continue developing Merlin, please consider making a donation.

All about Merlin Bird Photo ID