“Every Bird Counts” hosted at the WPL by Bird City
By: Judy Arney
On April 8, the Wabasha County Public Library welcomed community members for "Every Bird Counts," an event organized by Bird City. The program was free and open to the public; the event aimed to teach attendees how to use smartphone technology to count birds and recognize bird songs.
Nancy Falcum introduced the guest speaker, Steve Weston, to the attendees. Weston, a naturalist and experienced birder from Eagan, Minnesota, led the presentation. Weston serves as Vice President of the Minnesota Audubon chapter, regularly participates in the Midwest Crane Count, and will host birding field trips. Drawing on years of birding experience, he shared valuable insights with the audience.
“We have a very powerful tool we can use right in our hands,” Weston said, holding up his smartphone. He explained how birdwatching has been transformed by applications such as Merlin and eBird.
Weston first introduced Merlin, a free app developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Merlin uses artificial intelligence to identify birds by their sounds, recognizing over 2,000 species across the U.S., Canada, Europe, North Africa, and parts of India and Latin America. To use the app, one can download Merlin, start a recording, and let it listen to surrounding bird calls. Merlin then generates a list of birds it recognizes from the recording. While the app is accessible and user-friendly, Weston noted its limitations: for example, it may occasionally confuse similar-sounding species. During the presentation, he demonstrated how the app mistakenly identified a Redpoll bird, which would be considered a rare sight in Minnesota at this time of year. Merlin flagged this identification with a red dot to indicate a potential error, since its algorithm can sense when a bird is out of place. Weston pointed out that Merlin may have mixed up the Redpoll’s song with that of a goldfinch, which sounds similar.
