COLUMNS Apps Help You Identify And Find Birds

A group of my birding friends walked on May 2 in Sands Point Preserve and one of them, a very good photographer, commented later that he was identifying birds by sound more than by sight, which annoyed him a bit since he liked to photograph them. We heard a pretty rare bird calling, yellow-throated vireo, but we could not see it anywhere even though it seemed loud and close. But at least we knew to look for it since we knew it was there. Which is one point about hearing bird calls and songs, if you don’t see it, at least you know it is there.

Another point is If you recognize the call or song as belonging to a particular bird then you know what to look for and in the general direction and often you can better find the bird.

Last Autumn in the same preserve. I heard a bird song that I didn’t recognize. I turned on the Merlin app on my phone that identifies bird calls and songs and it said it was a chestnut sided-warbler. So I looked for that bird and found it directly overhead fairly quickly. So much of the time hearing the bird song or call helps

All About Birds

you find the bird.

The Merlin app, made by the Cornell Lab and is free to download. It can make mistakes and misidentify a bird song or call, but it is mostly correct from my experience using it, which I do every time I go looking for birds. Even birders who are really good at identifying birds by hearing use it regularly.

An app I use to identify birds visually is Sibley v.2, which cost me $20. It has the ability to show you a split screen of two similar birds in case you are not sure which is the correct one and need to compare them side-by-side. I also can play to calls or songs so I can compare that to what I heard. The eBIrd app, which is free to download, is used to enter the species of birds you see or hear and the number of each. It also has an Explore option to help you locate birds you want to see. Ebird uses the data put in by other birders using the eBIrd app. Also you can observe a specific “hot spot”, a place you are planning to visit and see what birds have been reported there. EBird is made up of ”hot spots,” specific places where many species of birds are found. For example, Sands Point Preserve, Leeds Pond Preserve and Hempstead Harbor Shoreline Trail are “hot spots” in this area. Smaller “hot spots” are Baxter and Mill ponds, Guggenheim Preserve, and Manorhaven Preserve and Nature Trail. If you have any questions on how to use these apps or on birds in general or native plants contact me at nsaudubonsociety.org.