OK, so birds

[Tom]

I downloaded the Merlin app and only feel a little guilty that I am not looking for the bird, seeing it well enough to identify it and then seeing it sing so I can learn its song. I just point my phone out there and it says what is going "Gloick!" every once in a while in the trees behind the house. The red bellied woodpecker, that one.

I plan to challenge it and see if it can tell the difference between a wood thrush and a hermit thrush. I'm pretty sure I can.

[echappist]

I downloaded the Merlin app and only feel a little guilty that I am not looking for the bird, seeing it well enough to identify it and then seeing it sing so I can learn its song. I just point my phone out there and it says what is going "Gloick!" every once in a while in the trees behind the house. The red bellied woodpecker, that one.

I plan to challenge it and see if it can tell the difference between a wood thrush and a hermit thrush. I'm pretty sure I can.

Keep us posted

Do you by chance get the red-headed woodpecker in your area as well?

That's basically my "grail" bird while I'm in WI. Apparently, there is one residing at the university arboretum, barely 3 miles away from where I used to live. Too bad I was in the middle of a move and didn't have time to go and spot it.

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Also, in other birding (old) news, a pair of robins set up a nest in one of the entrances of the place where we currently reside. The nest is located on a light to that entrance, and that whole entrance is shrouded under a canopy. I think that did it in terms of shielding them from view, as the nest would be pretty much in the open without the canopy.

I think the nestlings already hatched by the time we moved in, and we largely avoided going in/out of that entrance. One day, I opened the door and tried to get a glance at the soon-to-be fledglings; turns out that was more than enough to send them scurrying. Haven't seen them since.

After seeing two nests around the house get ransacked for food last year, it was good to see three fledge.

Photo of one of them after fledging.

[j44ke]

I downloaded the Merlin app and only feel a little guilty that I am not looking for the bird, seeing it well enough to identify it and then seeing it sing so I can learn its song. I just point my phone out there and it says what is going "Gloick!" every once in a while in the trees behind the house. The red bellied woodpecker, that one.

I plan to challenge it and see if it can tell the difference between a wood thrush and a hermit thrush. I'm pretty sure I can.

Yeah it isn't infallible by any stretch. My father leads bird walks and he hates it because everyone in the group has the app but no binoculars. So he's looking at the bird and telling everyone what it is, and all the "Merlins" say it is something else so of course everyone is suspicious that he's just making it up.

But, he says, at least they are outside.

edit: Evidently you can improve accuracy by getting a directional mic for your iPhone.