Hi all,
I'm writing in response to Patricia Cullen's and Bill Kaempfer's comments on Merlin Sound ID.
At the MerlinVision website (https://merlinvision.macaulaylibrary.org/en), you can see the updated list of species that Merlin Sound ID has been trained on, and how many recordings and individual sounds it has been exposed to from each species. You can also see a number that represents the current accuracy with which it identifies each species. If you click on "Species" and then on "US and Canada," you can click on the little arrow next to "Performance" in order to sort the list of species by Merlin's current accuracy. Numbers closer to 1 mean higher accuracy, and closer to 0 mean lower accuracy.
Merlin's accuracy is largely a function of how many correctly identified annotations and recordings it has been shown for each species. However, Sound ID only analyzes a couple seconds of sound at a time. That means it usually depends entirely on recognizing the individual song strophe, and can't keep track of longer patterns. For a single singing vireo (or other bird), it will treat each individual song phrase as an independent ID challenge. Even if it can tell Red-eyed from Philadelphia 9 out of 10 times, if it hears 100 phrases from a bird over a couple of minutes, chances are good that it will propose the wrong species for approximately 10 of those phrases.
In the case of those two species, Merlin will probably never be able to achieve complete accuracy, because Philadelphia Vireos imitate Red-eyed Vireo song phrases, as explained in Birds of the World:
Philadelphia Vireo imitates the song of Red-eyed Vireo, although the former's song is structurally less complex (Rice 1978b, Rice 1978c). Unlike Red-eyed Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo discriminates between its song, that of Red-eyed Vireo, and songs with modified syntax (Rice 1978b). Playback experiments confirm that because Philadelphia Vireo is considerably smaller than Red-eyed Vireo, it has an incentive to avoid interspecific hostilities (Rice 1978b). The similarity in songs of the 2 species constitutes a form of social convergence in which Philadelphia Vireo can advertise/defend territories without having to confront Red-eyed Vireos physically. Social mimicry thereby maintains interspecific territorial integrity (Rice 1978b).
Indigo and Lazuli Buntings on the Front Range of Colorado are also likely to remain permanently confusing to Merlin Sound ID. Although the two species' songs are fairly different on the East Coast and the West Coast, they learn each other's song phrases in areas where both species occur. Again, from Birds of the World:
In sympatry, where Indigo and Lazuli buntings sometimes hybridize (Emlen et al. 1975), the two species share song elements or songs and they may not discriminate in response to conspecific and allospecific songs.
If you are interested in helping to improve the accuracy of Merlin Sound ID, you can do it in two ways:
- Upload correctly identified audio recordings on your eBird checklists.
- Volunteer to annotate sound recordings for MerlinVision, which involves drawing boxes around spectrograms to train the AI. This option requires some expertise in birding by ear and in reading spectrograms.
I hope this inspires some people to contribute!
Nathan Pieplow
Boulder
On Sun, Jun 5, 2022 at 2:11 AM Patricia Cullen <hathcockcolorado@gmail.com> wrote:
During a seven day trip to the Finger Lakes NY in late May,Merlin seemed to confuse vireos at hot spots in Ithaca, NY (Mulholland Wildflower Preserve, Six Mile Creek) , it kept identifying the 2/3 note vireos as alternately Red-eyed and Philadelphia Vireo, but Ibelieve most/all of them to be Red-eyed in the areas I was birding. So I am interested to encourage Eric to write about vireo songs as well. Merlin was able to ID Blue-headed Vireo correctly in Tompkins County,NY, based on some limited use for seven days.Is there any effort to categorize which species Merlin confuses at this time, to aid the user?In Boulder County, it seems to report Indigo Bunting when the singing bird is a Lazuli Bunting, frequently, in hot spots like South Mesa Trail.Patricia CullenLongmont, CO--On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 12:34:19 PM UTC-6 Eric DeFonso wrote:Thank you to everyone who responded – I was successful in finding the white ibis. Exactly as advertised, five stars!
Eric DeFonso
near Lyons, CO
Sent from the Aether
> On Jun 4, 2022, at 11:54 AM, William H Kaempfer <William....@colorado.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi Eric,
>
> No news on WHIB in Boulder from me, although I did see three or four today near by home--in Safety Florida. Well, I see them just about every day when I'm here.
>
> Your finch song article was great--I've enjoyed all of your pieces and let Peter know that. It made me think that you might want to try vireos at some point in the future. I know there are only the two common front range breeders, but Red-eyed, Gray, and Bells are state breeders, too.
>
> I'm just back from a trip to Tawas Point, Michigan where Merlin kept identifying 2/3 note vireos as alternately Red-eyed and Philadelphia. I don't think I put down more than one Philly that I didn't also see.
>
> There are a couple of other interesting twists with vireos, too. One is difference in song in recently split species (like the Solitaries) or potentially split species (like Warbling). Another is difference in loudness--to me Red-eyed always seems gentle and soft spoken where as Yellow-throated is loud and Yellow-green is really loud. And then there are the alarm calls. When birders are pishing I think we are really mimicking a Yellow-throated or Blue-headed or Red-eyed's alarm call, whether we know it or not.
>
> Just something for you to consider.
>
> Bill
> Safety Harbor, FL
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cob...@googlegroups.com <cob...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of bay....@gmail.com
> Sent: Saturday, June 4, 2022 11:35 AM
> To: Colorado Birds <cob...@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [cobirds] Updates on the Boulder Ibis?
>
> If anyone has updates on the White ibis in Boulder today, please let me know. I'm currently driving back to the area after being away for nearly a month. Thank you!
>
> Eric DeFonso
> near Lyons, CO
> Sent from the Aether
>
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