Hi Chip and everyone else.
I would caution you and everyone else not to assume that Merlin is necessarily wrong. In your instance it is theoretically possible that Merlin and your smartphone together "heard" a Steller's Jay that you couldn't hear perhaps because it was a distant bird.
I notice this all the time and I'm sure most of you who use the Sound ID feature of Merlin have noticed that Merlin picks up a few more species that we can actually hear, and then when we listen carefully we can actually hear and sometimes see them.
Just because Merlin mentions a species, it's not necessarily what you are hearing. All smartphones have better sound gathering capabilities than our ears, like an astrophotograph that can show detailed features and even colors of nebulae for example that we can't ever see looking through even a large-objective astronomical telescope.
So one feature Merlin has which I find excellent and useful is that when a bird is calling, the name of the species lights up every time it calls. If for example you heard the RTHA but the yellow light did not light up the name of the species name in Merlin every time it called, then Merlin was likely hearing something that's relatively subliminal to your hearing.
Try it next time.
Ajit Antony
Central Park, Colorado
And I was recently birding in the foothills where I watched a Red-tailed hawk flyover calling repeatedly. Merlin ID'd it as a Steller's Jay! Is that the opposite of mimicry?Cheers,Chip ClouseLakewoodOn Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 7:46 PM Ajit Antony <aiantony521@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Elena and everyone else.Last year when I lived in New York and was involved in the 3rd (every 20 year) NY State Breeding Bird Atlas, I was in an area where I had already heard 2 Least Flycatcher calling and had seen each of them. Further along the trail I heard a 3rd and in trying to see it realized and saw that it was a earby Gray Catbird perfectly imitating 'che-beck' call of a Least Flycatcher !Out of curiosity I put on the Sound ID section of Merlin, and not unexpectedly it identified it as the call of a Least Flycatcher.I did not then think of it as a deficiency of Merlin, but marveled at the perfect ability of a mimid.Ajit AntonyCentral Park, Colorado--On Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 5:41 PM elena <elena@indra.com> wrote:Merlin is a wonderful tool, but it's certainly not as good as experienced ears. I watched Merlin (and, I confess, myself at first) be fooled by a blue jay doing a dang good imitation of a Coopers Hawk. I thought the jays were doing a very good job but wanted to test Merlin, and, no surprise, the blue jay won.
Sent from my iPhone
Elena Holly Klaver
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I acknowledge that I live in the territory of Hinóno'éí (Arapaho), Cheyenne and Ute Nations, according to the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, and that Colorado's Front Range is home to many Native peoples. Reconozco que vivo en el territorio de las naciones Hinóno'éí (Arapaho), Cheyenne y Ute, según el Tratado de Fort Laramie en 1851, y que el estado de Colorado al esté de las Montañas Rocosas es territorio de muchos pueblos indígenas.
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