Friday, 16 September 2022

Re: [cobirds] Merlin magic with vireos

Here is the info Nathan Pieplow posted  on Merlin Sound ID compared to Merlin Photo ID.
Merlin Photo ID has information provided by photos to ID 8000 plus species.
Merlin Sound ID as of today, has information to ID 685 species by recording. 
This website breaks down the sound ID info by region of the world.  

https://merlinvision.macaulaylibrary.org/en

So the more recordings we post to eBird, the better Merlin Sound ID will become. 
Compare the number of photos posted to eBird to  the number of recordings posted and
it becomes clear why a machine learning tool cannot correctly sound  ID without more
sound data. 

Add in the fact that most of us do not use directional recording hardware  to obtain higher quality recordings, but
we use $600-$10,000 lens and cameras  or a combination of a sophisticated phone cameras 
plus a magnifying scope to digi-scope our bird images. 

Patricia Cullen
Longmont, CO 



On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 1:47:37 PM UTC-6 Charles Hundertmark wrote:
Time of year comes into play here. Two things happen at the end of the breeding season that can complicate the challenge of identifying song. First, young males of many passerine species begin practicing song. Their songs tend to be imperfect imitations of the mature song. Second, males that have finished breeding are beginning to loose their song. They sometimes continue singing, but the "purity" of the song can diminish. I suspect that these complications can increase the difficulty of recognizing the song for Merlin as well as for the human ear. I ran into this a few weeks ago at Fishers Peak State Park with Plumbeous Vireos. I would sometimes notice discrepancies in the song, and sure enough, Merlin occasionally suggested Cassin's Vireo among its more accurate suggestions of Plumbeous Vireo. 

This is one reason why "Merlin ID" is not a sufficient supporting detail for a rare or unexpected species, though it may point in the right direction. 

Excellent that David brought this issue up.

Chuck Hundertmark
Lafayette, CO

On Sep 15, 2022, at 12:59 PM, David Suddjian <dsud...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now maybe I will gripe. I was back at the same spot along Deer Creek this morning. After a little while a vireo began to sing again that sounded like a Plumbeous. And another began right away to sing back at it. Eventually I confirmed both as Plumbeous. I had Merlin Sound ID on again, and the first thing it registered for the vireo song was a Semipalmated Plover! Then came the Plumbeous ID, followed by Cassin's ID as the same nearby bird sang. A screen shot shows these. A little later, on a different recording it ID'd the same singing Plumbeous variously as Red-eyed Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, and Plumbeous. Sigh...

David Suddjian
Ken Caryl Valley
Littleton, CO  

<Screenshot 2022-09-15 at 12.04.50 PM.png>

On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 2:58 PM David Suddjian <dsud...@gmail.com> wrote:
This is not a Merlin gripe, but just a funny experience from this morning at Deer Creek.

Were I to follow the magician's lead, I had an unprecedented collection of vireos in one spot today near Deer Creek in JeffCo. It's fun anytime you have singing vireos in the fall, as some species do, making it easier to detect them,... if not to view them, But to have five different species singing in one tree in September is virtually unprecedented. Sadly, virtual was all it was.


There WERE two Plumbeous Vireos singing near to each other, as you can hear on the recording on the checklist. One was much closer to me, and is louder. And there WAS a Cassin's Vireo nearby, but it was silent for Merlin during my encounter. So that is two species. And while Merlin identified my prominent singing PLVI correctly sometimes, but also variously as a Cassin's, a Yellow-throated, a Red-eyed and a Black-whiskered Vireo. Hey, there's one new state bird in there!! All those were its proposed IDs for the one singing PLVI. Let the user beware for all rare bird reports via dear Merlin. This we know. Personally I can relate, as I have a hard time telling the song of the PLVI from that of the CAVI. 

At the same location last week Merlin reported a Water Rail. A Water Rail?! 

David Suddjian
Ken Caryl Valley
Littleton CO

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