My experience is similar to what has already been mentioned.
I did want to add though that it (Merlin) does learn by "experience", so it is important for us to add comments, especially when we disagree with an ID given.
It takes a village.....
Faye McAdams Hands
Life is Simple -- Eat, Sleep, Bird.
Belfair, WA
________________________________
From: Tweeters <
tweeters-bounces at mailman11.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Carl Haynie <
hayncarl at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2022 7:34 AM
To: Kevin Lucas <
vikingcove at gmail.com>
Cc:
tweeters at u.washington.edu <
tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] chestnut sided warbler
Definitely, visual confirmation is needed on any hit on chip notes or contact calls. Lots of misses there. On Kevin's question, it depends on what it thought it heard with respect to the "chestnut-sided". Did it pick up a song or subsong segment? If it was just a contact call or chip, then I bet there's not much you'd be able to do with it even after analyzing the sonagram. That's been my experience.
Carl Haynie
On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 6:50 AM Kevin Lucas <
vikingcove at gmail.com<mailto:
vikingcove at gmail.com>> wrote:
I've also experienced Merlin misses, but what do folk suppose was the purported Chestnut-sided Warbler in this case?
Thanks,
Kevin Lucas
Yakima County, WA
Qui tacet consentire videtur
On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 6:47 AM Louise Rutter <
louise.rutter at eelpi.gotdns.org<mailto:
louise.rutter at eelpi.gotdns.org>> wrote:
Merlin has told me several times about the chipping sparrows in my yard when I know it's hearing juncos. I wouldn't trust it on an out of area bird without a visual confirmation. It's impressive technology that it works as well as it does, but perfection would be too much to ask!
Louise Rutter
Kirkland
On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 6:27 AM Carl Haynie <
hayncarl at gmail.com<mailto:
hayncarl at gmail.com>> wrote:
I ditto Penny's experience. I've been using Merlin quite a bit since my hearing is poor, but I always check it by simply replaying the recording, sticking my phone's speaker in my ear if necessary. Or by analyzing the spectrograms/sonograms at home if it picked up something really odd - yet possible (it's tricky learning how to export the recordings off your phone at first).
But, yes, even after you make sure the App is location-aware (you'll know since it will display your location when it's recording), there is still something in their algorithm that has it try to match sounds to birds not documented for our continent and the "hits" are frequently European birds. Quite strange. There might be a bird pack filter option I'm not aware of or they need to fine tune their logic a bit.
Carl Haynie
Sammamish
On Wed, Sep 14, 2022 at 10:37 PM PENNY & DAVID KOYAMA <
plkoyama at comcast.net<mailto:
plkoyama at comcast.net>> wrote:
Merlin isn't always 100%. I had it come up with a Yellowhammer in New Mexico a few months ago!
Penny Koyama, Bothell
On 09/14/2022 7:20 PM Mary Forrester <
mgfrrstr at comcast.net<mailto:
mgfrrstr at comcast.net>> wrote:
Today I was birding at Twin Ponds Park in Shoreline, using Merlin. Merlin picked up a chestnut-sided warbler. I neither saw nor heard it myself. Has anyone else encountered this bird?
Mary Forrester
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