During the original covid lockdown, you might recall I mentioned an activity known as “noc migging“. Essentially, it’s birding at night with a microphone and a sound recording device. You record the sounds of birds passing overhead, many birds migrate at night, and then process the recording to pluck out the sounds of our feathered friends for identification.

You can do the ID by ear or you can use software that analyses the sonogram and selects out the bird calls from the background noise of foxes and deer, motorbikes, cars, and other sounds of the night, and then passes it to ID software.

Of course, there’s an app that can do the recording and the ID all-in-one, and has been for some time: the Merlin app from, Cornell University. Commonly, it’s used by birders and others when they Hear a tweet or a chirp when they’re out and about to give them an ID for a sight unseen. The app records and analyses the avian sounds and gives you an ID for the species you’re hearing, usually within a split second.

I’ve used Merlin sporadically for that purpose for quite some time. But, hearing lots of bird activity in the Garden a few days ago I set my phone up with the app running, to hear what was around, even though I could ID most of them, hahah!

I wasn’t surprised by the majority of the IDs that popped up as I could hear the likes of Blackbird, Robin, Starling, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Carrion Crow, Goldfinch, Wren, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon, House Sparrow, Rook, Jackdaw, Pied Wagtail, and Magpie and identify them myself.

There were a few more obscure species that it identified that were a little surprising, Goldcrest, for instance. We have had that species in the garden before and I usually recognise their call but hadn’t noticed them toing and froing in our garden lately. The app also picked up a Redwing, one of the winter thrushes, which is likely to be arriving in our area at this time of year and was presumably flying overhead although I didn’t see it. There was an ID that the app labelled as uncertain – Brambling. I didn’t hear it, but it is nice to imagine that this species might be nearby. It also picked up Ringed Plover. Another I didn’t hear, but interesting to note.

I later fired up the app on a walk close to one of our local ponds and picked up a perhaps unsurprising Reed Bunting, confirming that I had indeed heard it. After dark that day I was also able to use the app to confirm a solitary Tawny Owl calling from a tree in a neighbour’s garden. Mrs Sciencebase recorded Greenfinch and Bullfinch as well as some the others mentioned above on her expedition with friends.

The app is yet to suggest an ID for anything that would be very unlikely around here. So, I’m taking it on trust that it’s giving me accurate data. The common birds above are definitely seen and heard in this area. The likes of Redwing and Brambling too. We’ve had Redwing in our garden in past winters, although not yet Brambling, just yet…