Novice bird-watcher is winging it with help from a magical app ❘ Average Joe

Not to brag, but I think I’m unofficially world-record adjacent (please hold your applause until the end of this column) — and I have my emerging obsession with birds to thank for it.

I’ve come quite a long way from a certain bird paranoia that developed in a "crow"-verwhelmed parking lot over the course of the winter, with a growing curiosity about avian patterns and behavior in a world where they don't need GPS to get from place to place.

I've dipped my toes in this birdbath before, enjoying watching the traffic come and go at my neighbors' feeder outside of my kitchen window. But at the start of this month, I stumbled upon a free app called Merlin Bird ID — an innovation from the folks at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that helps people to use sight and sound to become familiar with the various bird species around them. Of special interest is Merlin's ability to listen to live birdsong and offer immediate suggestions for the best matches.

If you’ve ever used the Shazam app to help identify a song (I spent all of 2019 doing this with grocery store playlists), the concept is similar. Merlin quickly scans its crowd-sourced database of recorded sound patterns to give you a real-time picture of feathered friends that you may not even have known were there.

It’s an oddly addicting app, helping the untrained ear to begin to differentiate between all kinds of species. For instance, it has somehow escaped my attention all these years that little birds called chimney swifts take up residence in the spaces high above fireplaces all over town. Now, just a few weeks into being a Merlin user, I can easily identify the chirpy bursts that build up and release like popping corn.

My kids think I am getting stranger every day as I excitedly babble about each new discovery.

“I just love those little swifties!”

“Dad! No!”

“What?”

“You can’t call them that. Do you even know what a swiftie is?”

After my daughters educate me about Taylor Swift’s fanatic followers, they, too, are drawn to Merlin and its observational superpowers. We sit on the porch swing and go through long stretches of demystifying the choruses all around us.

We’re listening, really listening to cardinals, robins, finches, blue jays, sparrows, mourning doves and grackles in a way that we never have before. There’s something peaceful and meditative — and bizarre — about it. We are communing with nature, but with the help of smartphones.

Then a neighbor’s dog barks, and Merlin is thrown for a loop. It immediately identifies the sound as a great blue heron. We hastily look up blue heron calls and play them back, and sure enough the barking that we heard resembles the raspy squawk of the heron.

Luckily, we know where to find blue herons to see if Merlin can accurately identify the real thing.

Going all in on the Super Bowl of bird-watching flash mobs

On May 13, a somewhat overcast but still pleasant Saturday afternoon, an alert popped up on my phone prodding me to take part in something called Global Big Day, a bird counting exercise in celebration of World Migratory Bird Day. The announcement boasted that this was going to be a record day for birding, so a chance to join the flock as a finally self-acknowledged birder was not to be passed up.

My daughters, to whom I presented the opportunity to either join me for grocery shopping or do a bit of birding instead, were unexpectedly giddy about the second option. We immediately agreed to test Merlin's detection chops at the celebrated heronry along Bath Road, situated between the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the ever-fragrant Akron Water Reclamation Facility. Our exploits would put us in the company of birders aiming to set a world record for most people collecting bird data in a single day.

The viewing area didn't disappoint, and we spent about half an hour observing and recording these quirky creatures before climbing back into the car and driving a short distance to the Beaver Marsh area of the national park. There, we came across dozens of bird-watchers — and Merlin detected a whole bunch of birds that are a bit more exotic than our usual backyard fare. The app logged warbling vireos, tanagers, Baltimore orioles, yellow warblers and Eastern kingbirds as we trekked out along the boardwalk across the marsh.

We lost ourselves in another long stretch of observation, enjoying the people-watching as well.

A young couple with a preschooler and a toddler was pointing out all the wildlife to the children.

A red-winged blackbird landed on a fallen tree leaning off the side of the path and hopped along the trunk.

"Look at that one," the mom said to the little boy in her arms.

"I love him," he said before shyly burying his head into her hug.

A quiet "aww" arose from my daughters just as I was remembering what it was like when they were tiny enough to enjoy their early encounters with the wild.

Apparent controversy threatens to ruin absolutely everything

While being very intentional in our participation in the Big Day, though, we can’t quite be sure we have a fair claim to sharing the expected world record for joining some 51,000 others. See, I never submitted our data. Oops. And that’s why we might just have to stay world-record adjacent.

But after overhearing one group of international visitors talking next to us, we are also now quite concerned that the record might have to be thrown out on a technicality if it turns out the birds were doping all along.

My goodness, my Guinness! What's this whiff of scandal? Well, it seems a troupe of Irish hikers has got the inside scoop on what's pumping up the birding here in the United States.

Their conversation, and you’ll have to play this in your mind in Irish brogue to enjoy the full effect, went like this (warning: ever-so-slightly salty language ahead):

Young woman: “Look at that big-arse bird over thar!”

Young man: “Think it’s a heron. We don’t have ‘em that big in Ireland.”

Second young man: “American steroids.”

When he isn’t toiling away as the Beacon Journal metro editor, you can occasionally find Joe Thomas musing about everyday life as the Average Joe. Reach him at jthomas@thebeaconjournal.com

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Novice bird watcher wings it with help from Merlin app ❘ Average Joe