That is interesting, I will have to check that out. Much like facial
recognition for humans I guess, seems like a logical thing to do. I
will try this with some other birds this evening, the more we try to use
this the better it will get.

> Jane Hadley <mailto:hadleyj1725 at gmail.com>
> Tuesday, December 8, 2015 11:21 PM
> Bill - Somewhat confusingly, Cornell has two different Merlin
> offerings. One is the original Merlin Bird ID app that is available
> both online and for mobile, as you mention. With this program, you
> answer questions about where and when you saw the bird, the color,
> shape and size of the bird, habitat, etc. and it guesses what your
> bird is based on your answers.
>
> Their other Merlin program is called the Merlin Photo ID. It is at the
> link I gave in my earlier post:
> http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/photo-id-help/
>
> At this link, you upload your photo, draw a tight box around the bird,
> click first on the tip of the bill, click second on the eye, and click
> third on the tip of the tail. Then click on the submit button, and the
> Merlin program will guess what your bird is. It often is right, but
> also a fair number of times wrong. The better your photo, the better
> Merlin performs, which is not surprising. It also apparently does
> better when the bird is in a "typical pose." The Cornell researchers
> are trying to improve Merlin's performance and I gather that the more
> photos it sees, the better it becomes.
>
> One of the shortcomings of the program is that it can ID only the
> commonest North American species -- 400 in its database. So if your
> bird falls outside of that group, you're out of luck. But this is not
> a criticism -- it is a miracle that Cornell has gotten as far as it
> has with this program.
>
> As I mentioned earlier, just for fun, I ran one of your photos, Bill,
> through Merlin Photo ID, and it identified it as Canyon Towhee.
>
> Jane
>
> On 12/08/2015 07:47 PM, retief wrote:
>
> retief <mailto:retief at deweydrive.com>
> Tuesday, December 8, 2015 7:47 PM
> First of all, thank you all so VERY much for helping to educate me,
> hopefully this old dog will retain a bit of your knowledge and help.
>
> These are great suggestions for searching for ID. One thing I find
> difficult is that even when someone gives me an ID, as in this case, I
> look in my Sibley's and what I see does not quite look right, although
> close. The reply from Hal Michael really helps me to understand this
> more completely, and his "single point in time" comment resonates with
> me. I try to got through these steps prior to asking, but sometimes
> they don't quite get me there. I have downloaded the Merlin app on my
> phone and tried using that, but Canyon Towhee did not show up in the
> list, not did it via the Online version. Jane, can you tell me what
> options you used so I can figure out how better to use the app?
>
> This is why I find Tweeters to be such a great resource, especially
> for people like myself who are do not fit what I think is the typical
> "birder", as my "focus" (bad pun intended) is a bit different. That
> being said I do want to be as accurate as possible, and you folks
> simply all deserve a very big "Thank You" from you, so ..
>
> Thank You very much.
>
>
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> Jane Hadley <mailto:hadleyj1725 at gmail.com>
> Monday, December 7, 2015 1:17 PM
> Bill Dewey asked for help identifying a bird he photographed in New
> Mexico. I also believe that it is a Canyon Towhee.
>
> Several people raised questions about whether Bill's pictures matched
> pictures in their field guides.
>
> I wanted to suggest that one helpful option for matching bird photos
> is Google Images. If you go to https://www.google.com/imghp and type
> in "Canyon Towhee," you'll be shown scads of pictures of Canyon
> Towhees (plus sometimes other birds thrown in thanks to the vagaries
> of the algorithmic approach). You can even search by sex, age and
> season: "female Hooded Merganser" or "Juvenile American Robin" or
> "basic plumage Golden-crowned Sparrow," for example.
>
> When I did the "Canyon Towhee" search at Google Images, I saw that the
> Canyon Towhee sometimes shows a crest (5th picture on the first row).
>
> Another sometimes helpful option is Cornell's Merlin Photo ID. This is
> at: http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/photo-id-help/
>
> I ran one of Bill's photos through this program and it did identify it
> as a Canyon Towhee. However, this program is in "Beta" right now and
> is somewhat hit-and-miss in its accuracy. Still, I've found it to be
> fun to try and easy to use.
>
> Jane Hadley
> Seattle, WA
>
>
>
>
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--

Bill Dewey
www.thefocusedeye.com
www.deweydrive.com