Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab Reviews

This is my go to bird ID app when I’m not sure what I’ve seen or heard in the field. Love that it’s fast, straight forward and provides just enough info in an organized fashion. The fact that it allows you to report sightings on eBird (sister app) is a bonus. Wish you could report birds you’ve looked up manually with the explore option. It would also be nice if there was the option to automatically start an eBird checklist when reporting. My biggest complaint is that when you occasionally find a somewhat rare or unique species, the list of possible matches does not seem to include them even if the identifying criteria fit. Later if you’re able to ID the species through other means, and you use the explore option two look them up, they are in fact in the database. It makes sense to limit the number of possible matches, but perhaps including the option to access a second tier of less likely matches would be a good solution. I have yet to use MerlinBirdID outside of the US so I can’t vouch for it’s effectiveness in other places. I’ve had mixed results with the photo ID feature. It seems to work well but using a mobile phone camera to get a decent search photo is a highly limiting factor. I’m super excited about the new sound ID feature. I’ve been playing with it for a few days now and find it to be very accurate and helpful. I expect it will only improve as more species are added. If I could give 4.5 stars I would. This is an excellent app!

MerlinBirdID is absolutely amazing. It helps identify species (even rare occurrences) when trying to figure out exactly WHAT that is you’re seeing. MerlinBirdID even alerts you when there are similar species and helps differentiate between them. I’ve actually discovered that I was looking at two or three different species when I thought I had captured only one in my photo! The interface is polished, allowing you to snap a picture with your phone or import one you’ve taken previously. It’s also super easy to find identification for many species using the Sound ID features simply by aiming your mic at the bird and getting quick details that way. Sound ID also helps you learn songs and calls for birds you can’t even see; simply point your phone in the general direction and voilà - a list of which species are singing right now. Of course you can also ID birds the old fashioned way by following the prompts in MerlinBirdID to sort by size, color, behavior, etc. to get a surprisingly thorough catalog of options. I NEVER travel without first downloading the “bird pack” catalog for the place I’m going. I can’t recommend MerlinBirdID highly enough, and suggest you also donate to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology so they can keep improving this incredible app and providing it to us for free.

MerlinBirdID is a fantastic tool for the birder in the field. Great aid to confirm an ID or to help identify a bird you’ve never seen before. The ID feature asks a few simple questions about size, color(s), behavior, and habitat, and presents a list of likely matches for your location. You can download bird packs for the USA, as well as other places around the world. Once you’ve downloaded the packs, it works well even without cell or internet access. Each species has pictures of male and female individuals, as well as immature and non-breeding plumages. Also included are multiple recordings of songs and call notes.

I rarely carry my printed guidebooks in the field anymore. Merlin on my smartphone is more compact and easier to reference, and provides access to the sound library as a bonus. I use the books for more in depth study when back at home.

Strongly recommend using Merlin in conjunction with eBird. You can keep and submit bird lists in eBird, and jump over to Merlin to look at pictures or listen to songs to confirm your ID. Both apps are developed by the Cornell Ornithology Lab and are nicely integrated. Both apps are free, but I encourage you to support them with a small donation if you enjoy using the apps.

It has come to my attention that the algorithm used to show likely birds in a region is flawed. The algorithm occasionally causes rare birds to appear common at certain hotspots. My guess to how this happens is likely due to the birding community discovering a rare bird and sharing that info with their community. Then people from all over show up and enter the bird into eBird. This causes a large number of people to report the same single bird. As a result the algorithm will occasionally tell you birds like a scissor-tailed flycatcher is common at Arcadia Marsh, MI. When as far as I can tell it was only seen on one day by many people. Or it could tell you that a lazuli bunting or a painted bunting are common at Whitefish Point, MI when in fact there are very few historic reporting a of either of those birds statewide. An improvement could be made by changing the algorithm to factor in the number of birds reported per checklist for example (10 trumpeter swans) along with the number of days the bird has been seen over a period of time. This would prevent anomalous inaccurate results for a single bird that was seen up to hundreds of times on only 1 day. Aside from that MerlinBirdID is excellent at what it was made to do. As a predictive tool of what birds you may find in a given region, extra research is required to double check Merlin’s findings.

MerlinBirdID is wonderful! I knew next to nothing about birds until a Eastern Goldfinch landed in my bird bath one day spurring interest into exactly what the name of this beautiful bird was. I searched inline but characteristics I described didn’t help me find what I was looking for so I checked in MerlinBirdID Store for a bird identification app finding many games but only a couple of identification apps I downloaded 3 but found this to be the best for me. Since then I have become an avid bird watcher! MerlinBirdID is easy to use even for me. I was disabled by a drunk driver in 05’ & fed up with tv so great to find a hobby I can enjoy outdoors. Even my parents joined in & my daddy after suffering a head injury himself in 2011 took up the hobby along with wood working. Together we would make feeders & houses to help attract more birds. He would build & I would paint different types of houses I researched on the website to help attract birds of all types. Unfortunately We lost him to cancer in February of this year (2018) but the time we spent birding together these past 7 years is something I’ll always hold near & dear to my heart. Thanks so much to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Birds in the Hand, & the developers of the Merlin Bird ID for providing us with this wonderful app that has given me some very sweet memories & a wonderful hobby.

MerlinBirdID got me started with birding. Last spring, I downloaded it to start identifying the common birds around me like American Robins, European Starlings, Common Grackles, and Northern Mockingbirds. Soon, I moved from merely identifying birds to counting them also, and soon after, I started recording full checklists with the EBird app (I think also a product of the Cornell School of Ornithology?), which is the best solution for those who wish MerlinBirdID would record their sightings. Now, less than a year later, I have 150 species on my list and have found a new lifelong hobby that I expect to bring me joy for decades to come. It’s all thanks to Merlin!

Though I eventually found that a high quality illustrated field guide (I use Sibleys in the US and Collins in Europe) is more useful than any app, I still reference Merlin for sounds or any time I don’t have my guide on me. I was very excited when Merlin came out with bird packs for Europe right before I traveled to Greece this past fall, and I look forward to seeing more bird packs coming out for other parts of the world as time goes on. It’s fun to scroll through the foreign packs and dream about traveling to new places and seeing those birds. I’d glad that when I do go, I’ll have Merlin with me to help identify them!

Thank you, Merlin, for your wonderful new sound ID feature!!! My favorite app just got even better! I tried it out yesterday for the first time and was very impressed. It made a few mistakes, as I would expect with a new app, but it identified most of the birds correctly. It had a little trouble, as I would expect, with low volume unclear calls, such as Red-winged Blackbirds cackling in the background, and sometimes didn’t pick up calls that sounded clear and reasonably loud to me, but it had no trouble with most individual birds at close range, and (mostly) correctly identified multiple species even when they were singing all at once. I love that the ID flashes when the same species is heard again in the same recording, helping you determine who is who. I’m not sure the IDs are accurate enough to automatically add to eBird, though. That may lead to a lot of incorrect IDs on eBird, unless people make an effort to verify them first. At one point MerlinBirdID reported four “unrecorded” species (in my specific location) singing all at once on a single 60 sec recording. I could only verify one of these with a sighting. Then again, who knows what I’ve been missing!

I’ve had MerlinBirdID for a few years now and just wanted to test it out. It’s probably not very helpful that I’m just now getting around to it. I was initially pretty disappointed at first because the number of species specific to Alaska was fairly limited. It took a little time, but they rolled out regional specific bird packs. It just blew up from there and became my go-to app for identifying birds. The photo ID feature is pretty great, but limited only by the quality of my phone camera. It’s usually pretty accurate though. I’ve just gotten way more interested in birds I really didn’t pay attention to before! MerlinBirdID is great and if you enjoy birds of all sizes in your area, chances are MerlinBirdID will be instrumental in identifying them. I think I use it more than any other app I have.

Oh yeah, I also really love the bird sounds feature. This is also very useful when you can’t necessarily see the bird, but you might have a close idea of what it could be. Do check it out, this is well put together app overall. I wonder if they’ll have a feature where you could identify simply by recording a song or a call? I’m excited for any new developments in the future!

Merlin bird id has not only helped me identify birds but has also helped me bring comfort and calmness to my mornings without me even intending to. I downloaded this out of sheer boredom and I now have such gratitude and admiration for all that worked to create MerlinBirdID and help others easily learn about birds. I feel more connected with nature now that I’m able to hear a bird and know exactly what it is. I know this review seems a little much but for a long time I had no interest in doing anything and this along with some other things was the start to my appreciation of the earth and nature which has seriously helped bring me out of a deep darkness and I sincerely thank the creators of MerlinBirdID. I hope that children will use this and be educated with the importance of birds and how they improve our ecosystem so that maybe they won’t be as destructive as we are now. I believe the ignorance of the role wildlife and how it benefits us contributes a lot to its destruction. Anyways have a good day and thank you for reading :)

I am a beginning bird watcher since moving to the country and it’s helped me to identify species that I just don’t see in the city, like the acorn woodpecker, the California scrub jay and even the turkey vulture. The only disadvantage is that one must be very specific about where the birds are seen. If you have a birdbath and you put in “swimming or bathing “ the search will yield mostly aquatic species and you probably won’t find what you are looking for. Best to put in “on a tree or fence “ unless you are at a lake or something, and you know that it’s an aquatic species. Just FYI. Use the companion app eBird to report and record your results. It’s got a link to Merlin so you can search as you’re out birding or just on a hike somewhere. Birds are so cute even though they can be dicks like raiding other birds nests and stuff (something I’ve seen and it’s quite upsetting). But it’s nature! It’s not really kind. I don’t see nearly as many starlings as I did in the city which is gratifying. In case y’all don’t know they’re an invasive species that should be removed with extreme prejudice wherever they are found in America. Anyway, thanks for putting MerlinBirdID out to the general public! Love it!

MerlinBirdID is overall quite useful for identifying birds and the audio references are great. What needs to change is your ability to add birds to your life list. There are times when I spot a bird, and I already know what bird it is, and I get excited to add it to my life list which is a great feature to have, but I *can’t*, which is super frustrating. You *have* to use the bird identifier to add a bird to your list, and there are times when I can’t for the life of me figure out what combination of answers I’m supposed to give the identifier to get it to suggest the bird I’ve already identified, so I just can’t add it. Then I search by name and there’s my bird, but no way to report my sighting. How crazy is that? Today it was a group of 6 cedar waxwings in the tree outside my window. I tried every combination of brown, gray, white, and even yellow and black with sizes of robin sized between a robin and a sparrow, and I never could get it to suggest waxwing, so it will not go on my list. This has happened multiple times now and at this point I’m going to give up on my life list because it defeats the purpose to not be able to track all my sightings.

I’m as new a birder as one can be, so it’s been...overwhelming, to say the least! I moved onto the farm where I work and have 27acres backing a river to trudge through. I have seen so many birds I’ve never seen before and thanks to MerlinBirdID, I can easily and accurately (I can only assume, since I obviously don’t know, but the pictures they show with their guesses are always numerous and clear, I’m quickly able to tell if that’s the bird I saw or not).
The more I learn, the more I’m beaming with excitement and I have to thank MerlinBirdID and the creators for giving me that ability to connect the dots, even as a hobbyist who doesn’t have access to all the information. MerlinBirdID is clean, easy to use and understand, jam-packed with maps and gps and photos and information. You can look up any bird in multiple ways, from the bird or the region.
I’m sure there’s more I’m missing, because, again, NEWB, but so far MerlinBirdID is everything and more!!

For the most part I like MerlinBirdID (though I’m not a fan of the new update that makes it so you can’t search all birds, but only by areas), but I wish it and the Audubon app would combine to have the best of both. Merlin has picture and sound ID, which is great. Audubon makes it easy to see if there have been any reported sightings in your area of a specific bird or just the general sightings. With Audubon you can also search birds easier and add one if you already know what it is, where Merlin makes that difficult. Just this morning, I saw a blue jay (which aren’t really supposed to be in my area, but have been for the last few years) and Merlin wouldn’t give it as a possibility (only giving stellers jays which are actually supposed to be here) but I couldn’t mark it as seen in MerlinBirdID because it wouldn’t give me blue jay as a possible bird, and I couldn’t just add it like in Audubon. You also can’t edit your sightings in MerlinBirdID, so make sure you get your date, location and bird right or it’ll be stuck incorrect in your sightings forever.

I’m shocked MerlinBirdID still has 5 stars overall. I’ve used Merlin Bird ID for years and it really simplified the identification process. When I first started using it there was only a limited database and it was still being expanded so I was very forgiving when I bumped into its limitations. At this point though, I just get annoyed and mad that I can’t ID the birds I’m spotting. MerlinBirdID doesn’t let you ID birds it doesn’t believe are in your area, and it also doesn’t let you manually ID birds by name in the event the search doesn’t bring up your bird. For example, in Southern California I had a Red Shouldered Hawk in my neighborhood for several weeks. I thought it was very strange because they’re not normally in the area and I double, triple and quadruple checked the bird with various apps and field references listening to his call and markings to make sure it wasn’t the standard Red-Tailed Hawk. I wanted to ID the bird in Merlin to help the database and other birders but MerlinBirdID wouldn’t let me. Once again, this time in Maine, I’m staring at an Indigo Bunting (rare) eating at a feeder. Even with the regional packs downloaded Merlin won’t let me ID the bird. Very disappointing.

MerlinBirdID is really cool, and I think it will be helpful! I haven’t really gotten a chance to try it out much but I live in Iowa and I am going on a camping trip near the Canadian border in Minnesota soon and can’t wait to try it out. I’ve been browsing through the stuff and testing MerlinBirdID out, like trying to get MerlinBirdID to think of European starling, And a while ago I think I saw a great egret but I wasn’t exactly sure, I tried to look on here but it wasn’t able to show me it might have been how I was trying to identify it and where I put the marker I don’t exactly know where saw it. Something I would like to see added to MerlinBirdID is skipping a category, like the location or the date because sometimes you don’t exactly know when you saw the bird, or where it was, just an option to skip would be nice. otherwise I absolutely love MerlinBirdID! I like how you can listen to the birds sounds, and just browse through bird categories! Another fun option to MerlinBirdID would be to interact with other burgers and share what you have seen!🦆! I will definitely be recommending it to my bird friends!
thanks!!!😁

Merlin is such a great app, and really fun to use and look for birds. It’s a great beginner app if you’re just starting out birding, but good for more experienced people too. The pictures are almost always extremely helpful, as are the maps, descriptions, and sounds. I haven’t tried photo or sound ID yet since I don’t have a good camera and usually don’t have the availability to record birds, but if I ever do I’m excited to try them. My only complaint is that when I want to add a bird to my life list, I have to go through Bird ID and have the bird I’ve identified as my bird appear as an option in order to select it. Usually this works fine, but often the bird I want to add doesn’t appear on the list, even if I fiddle with my selections. I can sign onto eBird and add it to my life list there, which will appear in MerlinBirdID and is fine, but as I’m more of an amateur birder I don’t find it necessary to have that much detail and it’s a pain to do. It would be helpful to have a place in the Merlin app to add to your life list without having to go through Bird ID.

I kinda rolled my eyes when this feature was added, expecting it to be wildly inaccurate. This has not been the case. I’m blown away by how well it’s worked. I’ve been able, on several occasions, to actually call birds in using the provided, documented recordings to get a better look and confirm the ID. I would give this a 4.5 if possible. My only complaint is something I believe can and will be fixed in the future. When using sound ID, after MerlinBirdID has offered a suggestion, it would be great if you could tap on and link directly to that bird for specific identification. Right now, you basically have to back out and start the traditional ID process from scratch when you already know what bird you’re looking at. On occasion, you’re not lead to the bird you are already certain you’ve seen and heard. A quick link between the sound ID and the actual individual species page where you can confirm “this is my bird!” would be an amazing improvement. In general, thank you for an amazing app!

This has quickly become one of my favorite apps I have on my phone. I work at a wildlife rehab and I was not a huge birder until I started working with them more. Consequently, I was not too knowledgeable on bird IDing but due to the nature of my work I needed to learn fast. Thanks to the Merlin app, I’m able to quickly find out what kind of bird I’m looking at. It’s like a super easy dichotomous key, answer a few questions and you get a list of birds that fit the description complete with maps and sounds. I think Merlin has been correct with the first suggestion about 99% of the times I’ve used it, and the 1% of times is probably rare birds at work that were found somewhere they shouldn’t be. If you are interested in learning more about birds I absolutely recommend the Merlin app as well as the All About Birds website/Cornell lab of ornithology ebird website 🕊🦩🦢🦃🦜🦚

MerlinBirdID is a great resource and I use it every time I go birding. The ID Info section does away with extraneous details and gives a succinct summary of field marks, which is great when trying to ID on the fly. The numerous pictures for every bird -usually in all plumages and from many angles - are also so helpful. However, I find myself usually just using the explore birds feature rather than the ID program because I find it more effective to manually narrow down my options. Because the criteria are so limited it often leaves out birds it should not or if you are incorrect about one detail this can throw off the whole search. It also only suggests common species in your area, which is frustrating because it is the uncommon birds I need help identifying. If you are just starting out birding or are birding in an unfamiliar area MerlinBirdID is a must have, but even moderately skilled birders can outperform MerlinBirdID ’s ability to come up with potential ID answers.

MerlinBirdID is extremely easy to use and accurate for identifying birds based on both sighting characteristics and photos. The photo identification feature nearly aligns with Arthur C Clarke’s third law, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and hence MerlinBirdID name of Merlin is extremely appropriate.

HOWEVER, it does not allow you save your bird history, DESPITE MerlinBirdID explicitly stating that your sighting “response has been recorded to improve Merlin’s accuracy.” Such an oversight is nearly inexcusable, as it requires you to save your own screenshots or enter the info in a separate document or in eBird (for which both the interface and ease-of-use are greatly inferior to and clumsier than those of Merlin).

I am practically begging the developers to add a bird history/tracking function to MerlinBirdID ASAP (as they have claimed to have been working on for at least the last six months), as I would be more than willing to pay for such functionality and MerlinBirdID would no doubt merit the full five out five stars.

This is probably one of the highest quality apps I have ever come across. It is very clear well-made and easy to use. And aside from looking good and being user-friendly it also has great information within it. It includes photos calls pictures and all sorts of other cool things that are really useful. They also have a list of all the birds in your area as well as out of your area but aside from that they also have a feature where you can fill out a quick five question survey or form (whatever you want to call it) that will immediately give you a list of birds that match your inputs to the form. And finally one of their other cool features is the photo identification. Well it is hard to get a good photo of birds if you can get even a decent one you can enter the photo and it will pull up a list of possible birds. So it is definitely a five star were MerlinBirdID are use it it’s great to identify birds and it’s very user-friendly. Frankly they could charge money for MerlinBirdID but they don’t and that’s great.

MerlinBirdID has got me into bird watching more then ever! Not only is great to ID birds with, but to call them in as well. It is so cool to be listening to a cardinal call on MerlinBirdID then all of the sudden have that bird fly into your yard and talk back to you! Such a great experience. I’ve even had Grey Cat Birds fly and land right next to me, 2 feet away, and talk to me. I’ve listen to the calls so many times now that I can ID a bird without even pulling up MerlinBirdID just by the sound they make! MerlinBirdID has also taught me many things about many different kinds of birds. This has helped me improve my feeder station to attract those kinds of birds. Before I would get maybe 20 birds a day. Now I get over 100! I highly recommend MerlinBirdID for someone looking to learn and ID birds more easily. I’ve been loving so far, and I don’t plan on deleting anytime soon!

I am strictly a backyard birder looking out the large window from the “breakfast room.” I have binoculars handy to help distinguish characteristics for ID’ing birds and a book of local birds to help as backup. For the most part this is a great free app and I should not complain. The only annoyance I have is at times I KNOW what the bird is but it does not appear in my list of possibilities even after adjusting the criteria. Recently an “uncommon” bird appeared and was actually in my listing as “uncommon” and when it showed up again and I went to ID it, it was not in the listing. I had to go to e-bird to report it. It would help if you could browse the bird list and have the ability to choose “My Bird” from the larger browsing list. This happened last year 2018 with Stellar Jays and this year 2019 with Curve billed Thrasher. But other than that, it is a very good tool; the pictures are great and show the female, male and juvenile, as well as regional differences. Written descriptions are concise and very well written.

If all the bird identification app I’ve tried this one is hands down the best. It has the largest library of bird songs, calls and flight sounds associated with birds. You can load different packs for regional birds or the complete pack for all birds for a much larger region. If you load the eBird app you can start sighting lists and submit your sightings and counts of birds. It uses GPS to keep a track of where you have gone during your outing and you can keep track of your sightings and compare with other sightings in your area or around the world. The only thing I wish they had is a bird song identifier where you could load a recording of bird songs and then identify them kinda like a Shazam or SoundHound type app. I recommend you download both apps and set up and account and start logging your sightings. It’s great fun and addictive.

Great bird ID tool! I didn't have a bird book with me on a recent trip to a Florida state park and do not know wintering shorebirds. I took a photo with my phone and then downloaded MerlinBirdID at the hotel that night. Figured out quickly what I saw that day including several new species for me like a black-bellied plover.

I use MerlinBirdID frequently. It not only makes bird identification really easy, but I like being able to contribute to Cornell's data base on what birds are where.

Update to my review: I have been using Merlin now for several years and love it. There are times though when I observe a bird that will not come up in the search results. It is not a case where Merlin does not have the species in its data base because I see it elsewhere in MerlinBirdID functions. It would be great if MerlinBirdID allowed you to name the bird yourself if it doesn’t come up in the search. That way, your siting could be recorded.

I recently put up a bird feeder and was surprised by the number of different birds that visited my feeder... and also by how little I knew about the birds in my area. After trying other apps and online sites to ID the birds, I’ve found MerlinBirdID to be the simplest, most intuitive and highest quality source for bird identification. I especially like the feature that shows me the birds I’m likely to see based on location and date, and I enjoy being able to contribute to the accuracy of the database through bird sighting submissions. I only wish that I could have access to the record of my bird sightings, since my limited knowledge of these birds means it’s likely that I’ll forget over time which birds I’ve sighted. Overall, though, I give this well-designed app two thumbs up and five stars!

I love this bird identifying app. I use it for its purpose always.
I am very disappointed about the updates, however. I use the Russian Language. When I use Family/Most Likely in the Explore Birds section, it used the families. I used to be able to view families. Now, the list I see is identical to Most Likely, in which the birds are not very organized. And when I try to view by family, I just see a blank screen with blank spaces for birds that are intended to be there. Please return this.
The developers should also add full language support for MerlinBirdID . Now that I use Russian in Merlin, and the new update only allows Most Likely in other languages, the birds become a jumbled mess! I am also really disappointed that the description of the birds are English in every case, even if you change the language.
Maps are frustrating: most birds do not have a map, or have a map that is extremely difficult to read (see European Goldfinch maps). The map legend does not show meanings for all colors and patterns (see Sandhill Crane maps).
Please add Russia bird packs. Russia is a vast country, and there are many birds in it, too. Some birds in Russia are also not available in any bird pack!
Finally, please return old and advanced eBird-like settings. It might be complex, but just add an Advanced Settings button below it. This would be much better compared to just Language settings.

I have thoroughly enjoyed MerlinBirdID and learned so much about birds. Using it is very easy, just a few simple steps will bring up a list of possibilities from which to choose. MerlinBirdID offers a brief summary of the bird including pictures of males, females and juveniles, along with a map showing the areas the bird is usually found. Additionally, you can listen to the bird sounds - which my (strictly indoor) cat loves! Of course, it helps that our bird-feeding station is right outside a large window in our house so I can usually get a really good look at the birds. We buy a good selection of food to attract different birds and I make our own suet which they love. Thank you Merlin for this wonderful app! This has greatly increased our enjoyment of bird-watching!

This is a great app! I’ve been able to identify every bird I’ve seen. And the calls and songs for the birds are amazing! We attract lots of birds just by playing them. But here’s the major flaw...when you confirm a bird ID it sends that data to Cornell labs so they can use it for collecting their data, but it doesn’t save it for your own use. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a bird that I’ve previously identified but can’t remember the name of and have to go through the ID process again. Or it would be nice just to know how many birds I’ve ID’d. If tracking/saving the ID’s for Cornell Labs is important to them, why wouldn’t they think it’s important to the person using MerlinBirdID ? I know I can probably download another app for tracking my bird ID’s, but why should I have to? Please, please, please add this feature to MerlinBirdID!!!!