[NFBMI-Talk] Fwd: Article from USA Today News Section 2023 06 18

[Sanho Steele-Louchart]

Appreciate the share. Just downloaded the app, myself.

Sanho

On 6/22/23, Fred Olver via NFBMI-Talk <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> I came across this article and thought some of you might be interested. As
> well, I was doing a search for books on birds last week and came across one
> which was specifically developed for visually impaired individuals with
> actual birdsongs in it. Just thought you’d like to know, Fred Olver.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <publications at nfbnewsline.net>
>> Date: June 19, 2023 at 5:38:12 AM CDT
>> To: Fred Olver <fredolver at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Article from USA Today News Section 2023 06 18
>>
>> Millions of people are using an app to discover a hidden world all around
>> them: Birds. Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY. Merlin's Sound ID can identify
>> 10,315 bird species. It's based on a library of 2 million recorded bird
>> songs from around the world.. Im not a bird watcher but Ive become a bird
>> listener ever since downloading a bionic ear app to my phone. It lets me
>> enter a different world, one where Im surrounded not just by chirping but
>> by Black Phoebes, White-breasted nuthatches, Northern flickers and
>> Dark-eyed juncos. Its magical. Ill admit, Im horrible at identifying, or
>> really even spotting, birds. Friends eagerly point at a tree saying Look,
>> a Pileated woodpecker! and all I see is a blur. Or A California Towhee!
>> and all I see are a bunch of branches. They pass me binoculars and I get
>> nauseous from the movement. Lets face it, I lack the pattern-recognition
>> knack that makes birding fun. That all changed when I downloaded the
>> Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology . I originally
>> added it to my phone to try to identify a bird Id actually managed to see
>> (a Steller's Jay so blue even I couldnt miss it). Then I turned on the
>> Sound ID. Woah. I was immediately immersed in a new reality, one bursting
>> with birds Id never paid attention to because they were invisible to me.
>> Imagine being plunked down onto a street in Paris where there's a wild
>> swirl of language going on around you. And then someone throws a switch
>> and you understand them all. How does Merlin Sound ID work? Here's how it
>> works: First you download the free app to your phone. When you hear birds,
>> you open the app and hit "Sound ID" and then the microphone button. The
>> app starts listening for birds and when it hears and identifies one, it
>> pops up a line with the name of the bird and a photo. It can sort out even
>> if multiple birds are singing at the same time. From my back porch just
>> now, it heard Chestnut-backed chickadees, House finches and Bushtits, all
>> the while ignoring truck, car and bus sounds as well as nearby roofers, a
>> distant jackhammer and someone's leaf blower. Even in the city, it did a
>> great job. When you stop recording, you can tap each individual bird to
>> get a photo and more information. Suddenly I know the birds that chirp in
>> a tree across the street each morning were House finches, and the quiet
>> peeping Id heard in the backyard was a Golden-crowned sparrow. When I
>> walked in the park by our house I was awed to realize the hoots I kept
>> hearing were not just one but two kinds of owls Great horned and Barn. I
>> am not the only person to be entranced by this. The sound portion is the
>> most popular part of the Merlin app, said Alli Smith, Merlin project
>> coordinator at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In the past 30 days, 2.5
>> million people used Merlin's Sound ID app while 500,000 used the Photo ID,
>> she said. 'Really good at identifying birds by sound' Merlin's Sound ID
>> can identify 1,054 bird species. It's based on the Macaulay Library ,
>> which contains 2 million recorded bird songs from around the world that
>> are then annotated by a team of bird experts. "They're really, really good
>> at identifying birds by sound," said Smith. When you use the app, you also
>> see a representation of the audio waveform scroll across the screen. "The
>> experts physically draw a box around the part of the file where the bird
>> is singing," she said. That allows the program to tie a song to a given
>> species. Multiple recordings are important because birds sound different
>> depending on the time of year and geography. "Carolina wrens sound totally
>> different in New York than in Georgia. We want to make sure we capture
>> them all so we don't accidentally train Merlin to recognize only New York
>> Carolina wrens," she said. It's a time- and labor-intensive process. For
>> each species, the experts listen to about 150 different recordings, which
>> they tag so the program can learn them. For some species that can go as
>> high as 400. Bird mistakes Merlin is not perfect and it can get confused.
>> That's one reason why it asks to access your location, so it knows what
>> birds are likely to be around. Here in San Francisco, I'm probably not
>> hearing a Black-capped Siskin (which lives in Guatemala.) Smith's dog
>> makes a whining sound when he sees a rabbit outside which routinely
>> confuses the app. And a week ago mine told me a Rec & Park truck backing
>> up to a pile of wood chips was a Peregrine falcon. Though I'll admit, when
>> I listen to the examples of an actual Peregrine falcon Merlin thoughtfully
>> provided, it was an honest mistake they sound remarkably similar. And that
>> identification had a red dot next to it, telling me that it would be rare
>> for a species to be seen where I was. It's not cheating Just to be clear,
>> using Merlin Sound ID isn't cheating at bird watching. Because there is no
>> cheating when it comes to learning to appreciate the avian world, said
>> Smith. "Merlin is lowering the barrier to entry, making birding less
>> daunting," she said. "It can be intimidating to open a bird book and
>> think, 'Oh my God, there are 7,000 birds in this book and they all look
>> the same!' Instead, you can let Merlin be your magic ear. That's where the
>> name of the app actually comes from, because of it's "almost magical way
>> of guessing which bird you saw. You can of course also do things the
>> old-fashioned way, by sight. Merlin has a series of five questions to
>> narrow things down once you've gotten a glimpse of a bird Where did you
>> see the bird? When did you see the bird? What size was the bird? (wren,
>> robin, crow or goose-sized?) What were its main colors? What was it doing?
>> Answer those simple questions and it will give you list of possible birds
>> to choose from based on your location. But I wasn't surprised to hear that
>> five times more people use Sound ID than the photo ID guide. Me? I'm
>> content to stick with my magical ear for the time being. Someday I may try
>> to work out which bird goes with what name and sound, but for now it's
>> enough to know the bird I heard when I was out watching agricultural
>> robots down in Monterey was a Pied-billed grebe. This article originally
>> appeared on USA TODAY: Millions of people are using an app to discover a
>> hidden world all around them: Birds
>>
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He/Him