Reviews for Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab

Best Bird app ever! For a free app, this one has some really amazing features. Recording, naming and organizing birdsong sessions are only a few of the tools available. There is an incredible amount of information for each bird species, including several photos of the bird; male, female, juvenile...they even vary by region). You can listen to samples of the different songs and calls each bird produces.

Cool program, but the app should have the option to not have location tracking (and work - not a Samsung permissions workaround). I can't add birds while recording, and have to take a screenshot if finding multiple new birds or 'fake it' and just search the second/third/etc by name instead of matching to the recording. If it could run in the background while noting new birds this wouldn't be an issue. The image matcher is quite poor compared to how good the audio matching is. Longer recordings!

Loved the app, but it will not work anymore. It says it needs to verify my email, but it doesn't send an email so I can verify it. I wish there was a way to fix this because we live in the country and the four days it worked, it was great! I deleted it and reinstalled the app, but it still doesn't work. Help if you can! Update; someone helped! Thank you for fixing my access!!! Best app and staff ever!!!! Five stars all day, every day!!!

New birdwatcher— this is awesome! I learn about birds in my area and elsewhere. The information helps me identify my birds on my own, even though identifiers are also incredible. I do have an adjustment that I would make. When you do the step-by-step identity process, the app asks you five questions: date,location,colors,size,and position of the bird. I'd like more options,like patterns,beak shape,tail shape,etc. They shouldalso tell us why the bird made a specific sound. (Warning vs song)

This app is wonderful! Searching for bird information is easy. Identifying and "collecting birds for your "life list" is fun for the whole family. The app is very user friendly, my children (elementary and preschool age) can use it. We also love that we are helping scientists collect information about bird migratory patterns and habitats.

This is the most amazing app ever! I have been using it for a couple of weeks. It lists the birds that it hears and I just realized that every time a particular bird makes a sound the bird in the list lights up so you know which one is making the sound at that moment. I never could have figured out what bird was making the loud, unique call in my yard this morning without the app. It was a Carolina Wren.

This app is really cool, identifying birds by their calls. It does an amazing job identifying bird calls despite substantial background noise, and can even identify birds at significant distance despite limited volume. I find this app great to go into new locations -- woods, fields, seashore, even apartment complexes -- fire up the app and watch and listen as the bird world comes to life around me. With this app I have learned to identify dozens of birds by their call alone. Fun & educational!

I love this app! I use it to maintain a list of birds that I have heard/seen on our property. (60 species and counting.) Its easy to use. I don't have any issues with false results or unknown queries, as long as location is on and you have your data packs downloaded, you're golden. My only wish is that there was a way to have multiple lists, like the species I've observed on my property, vs species I've encountered elsewhere, for example. I saw a lot of cool things in Florida that I didn't save

This app has changed my life, I tell everyone about it, one of the coolest things technology has brought us who love nature. BUT, trying to delete recordings is INFURIATING!!! So much so that it costs two stars off of an app that I otherwise love so much. I use it so much that I have accumulated way too many recordings, but trying to purge them is the most frustrating thing I've ever had to do on my phone. Please, pleeeeeeeeeeease make it more user friendly, PLEASE!!

I'm an amateur friend of birds, and really want to take advantage of my location. I'm surrounded by one of the last wetlands in Kansas, and its been mindfully kept, while developing around it. I want to learn about the many birds I've become so fond of (this includes waterfowl in my instance). Easy to use, the identifier is easy and quite intelligent in sound selection.

Good for sound identification, bad for tracking your life list. Listening to birds while walking through the woods and actually getting a sense for what kind of birds they might be is super fun! This app often refuses to let me track birds that it deems too rare for a given location or time frame. I want an app that will let me track my casual birding life list, with nice pictures, and not make me use researcher level rigor or attempt 100% accuracy. Date and location would be nice if optional.

Perfect for casual birdwatchers and bird enthusiasts. I don't know what it took me so long to download this app—I've had Cornell's ornithology website bookmarked for a long time—but I don't regret it one bit. It was great for identifying birds on vacation and for adding birds in my local area to my life list. I find myself stopping on my morning walks to work to record and ID the birds I hear, I can't recommend this enough. Takes up a lot of data for packs, but it's a reasonable trade off.

Super easy to navigate. Offers up very specific species based on my location and other identifying factors. Also has an easy to use and accurate photo ID option. It has bird calls and songs for each species, and I enjoy playing them to hear the birds respond. I have even used it on bird watching walks to call in the birds to take better pictures. If there was one thing I would change about it, I would add a feature to share the beautiful audio recordings I have captured.

I like the app overall, very useful. However, the recently added auto-playing of video clips when identifying birds is VERY distracting -- PLEASE make it optional! Also, navigation needs improvement. It's often impossible to return to the main "Identify" page from "My Recordings" without quitting and restarting the app (back button only goes to previous recordings). I also wish Lifelist entries could 1) be sorted by location and 2) show every time/place you've IDed a bird.

This app is awesome! One of my very few complaints about it currently is the map. When I go to mark a new bird found, the entire map is grayed out and cant see anything. And thats with my location on. I'm unable to see where I marked birds or any of my locations because you can't see this map at all. Please fix this and it's back to 5 stars!

I use it daily because it tells me what birds are in my yard. I love to learn about each bird and being able to listen to every bird's different calls and song's is great fun. My phone camera doesn't take good enough pictures, so can't get accurate I'd, but sound I'd works great. By listening, I've found birds I never knew where in my yard. My only complaint is once I joined e-bird, Merlin will no longer add birds to my life list. E-bird is way too complicated for me and I've tried every thing.

I enjoy using this app. You can identify birds by sound, photo, or a visual description. It has photos of the birds in different stages, migration maps, and interesting details about each bird. You can download packs based on where you live or are traveling to. I live in the lower 48 but have also used it in Alaska and the Dominican Republic. I already have the European pack downloaded for my trip next month.

This app is so neat! It detects even the faintest birds noises. Once it picks up a bird, it provides a picture and the option of more information. You can save your recordings, too. There's so much to this app that I haven't even explored yet. it's been so cool to see what birds are around me, especially when it detected 14 different species all at once.

Wants me to create an account to keep track of the birds I spot. Okay, whatever. Try to create an account; "no internet connection" wait a few, close the app and try again. Works. Try to add a bird, "no internet connection." This happens constantly. Why bother making an account if it won't let me register birds at all? Why can't it just locally cache everything? Absurd.

Great app! I love the info about birds, the pictures, the call recordings, etc! It's been so fun keeping an eye (and ear) out for the birds in my area, since it gets me off my phone & interacting with my surroundings for once! My criticisms: 1) I'm unable to see a list of birds that I've sighted for the DAY. All I'm able to do is see the TOTAL list of spotted birds. This affects my feelings of achievement. 2) There are too many steps to log a sighting each time. This affects motivation to log.