I was a beady, birdy child. I had binoculars, made lists and sewed a Young Ornithologist’s Club (YOC) patch on my M&S jeans. Every spring, our YOC leader, a cheery ex-Army man ‘Binks’ Williams would drive a minibus at 6 a.m. to Wimbledon Common, for us to experience the Dawn Chorus. This was more exciting in principle than reality, as unless I could see a bird through my bins, it didn’t really exist. I was hopeless at identifying birds through song alone.
In those days, accurate aural definition resided with vague phonetic descriptions in books, or vinyl LPs such as the 1964 A Tapestry of British Bird Song by Victor C. Lewis, which gave examples from various common species, but lining these up with the sound you heard a while back on Wimbledon Common was not easy.
Even a trip to the Lee Valley with my friend, ardent birder Sam West, was frustrating. Sam, (currently to be seen birding on Channel 5 with Ade Edmonson) is a master of avian identification. He clearly spent a long time listening to LPs in the 1970s. ‘Listen’ he whispered, pointing to a bush. The bush gurgled. ‘A nightingale!’ cried Sam, who was carrying what looked like an actual telescope with him. Brilliant! But you can’t always summon a Shakespearean actor to go birding with you.
What has revolutionised ornithology for me, and (I suspect) millions of others is a simple, free phone app. It is aptly named. Download Merlin and hold your phone up outside to catch a bird singing. A gnomic message will appear; ‘Hearing A Bird.’ Seconds later, the identity of said bird is revealed. Identification happens in real time. Once unidentified chirp sounds are instantly decoded, defined and recorded, in the presence of the actual bird.
With Merlin at my side, my average morning in central London has since pivoted from a dreary walk, usually in the rain, to a Pilates class, into a thrilling engagement with a dynamic musical community loudly advocating both territorial claims and amorous ambitions. It makes everything better, even Pilates.
Thanks to Merlin, I know that at precisely 6:39 a.m. on March 19th my garden was home to a blackbird, a robin, a blue tit and a wren, and that these four were suddenly joined by a Lesser Black-Backed Gull. Some mornings, my regular songsters are augmented by a family of Coal Tits, a whole range of Finches or a Parakeet. According to the RSPB, 3rd May is Dawn Chorus Day. Well, for me, every day is Dawn Chorus Day, even if I don’t turn the device on until well after sunup. Indeed, ‘Sunset’ chorus is just as fun, and quite as busy.
My ‘Life List’ (every bird identified to date), totals 39, and growing. I stay in Provence a lot, so it also includes thrilling French additions such as the beautiful Golden Oriole, whose call is as magical as its appearance. Then there is the Short-Toed Treecreeper, a minute thing, coloured like bark and which goes up tree trunks in a circular fashion. What a wonderful bird. No, I haven’t seen it. But I have heard it, and now I know what I am hearing.
Like the best inventions of the internet, this app disrupts something which you think might never have been bettered (hailing a black cab) to offer another solution (Uber). Books and records and Sam West are great, but nothing is like having the expertise at your own command.
Merlin has endowed me with next level ornithology, and bragging rights now are mine. My four children are long used to me showing off about stuff, but this is a new skill, deployed on even a simple mission to the shops, because now I can identify (some) birds without the help of Merlin. Machine gun going off? Wren. Someone running up to bowl? Chaffinch. Tweety stuff? Blue tit. Fluty beauty? Blackbird.
This is the opposite of doom scrolling since it betters life
As if things couldn’t get any better, Merlin has an altruistic side too; no feeling guilty about getting your phone out. This is the opposite of doom scrolling since it betters life. The app is produced by the Cornell Lab of Technology and developed by a team which processes the data fed back to it by the public, which is recording and logging all those singing birds. Hence, every time I brandish my phone in my garden to capture the astonishingly loud song of the Eurasian wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) – which I regard now as ‘my’ Wren – details of the exact time and place in which this tiny bird, three inches long, is dutifully singing are relayed back to Merlin HQ. The app is constantly tracking and collating data of millions of singing birds across the globe.
Forget dear old Attenborough; his shows are all very well, but I feel I now have a more profound connection to nature, at least in terms of the winged category. On a recent trip to Cornwall, I was walking across a wind-whipped headland with my eldest daughter and her boyfriend. We came to a standstill. I held up my phone, to record and identify what was outpouring its complex, liquid song high above us. Above us, a black speck. On the screen, affirmation. ‘Eurasian Skylark.’ Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
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