No, not the wizard. I’m not much into sword and sorcery, although I loved Excalibur and especially its Merlin. But no, this is the free app from Cornell which is amazing and, so far, totally free of ads, promotions, and other junk. It can identify birds by photo or sound. I turned it on for exactly one minute and this is what I get. These are all the different birds I could hear. When each sounds its background turns yellow. New birds come on the list as they get detected.

This was how I discovered I had two types of crows in my neighborhood. It was amazing I hadn’t realized this before. But here’s at least a partial explanation. First, fish crows and American crows look almost identical.

The American Crow on the right is usually a little larger and the fish crow supposedly has a shaggier look and a slightly more slender beak.

Second, who would have thought a fish crow would be in suburban Atlanta, far from large lakes or rivers (we do have a large pond called a “lake” nearby). Apparently fish crows have been moving inland from the Atlantic coast specializing in waste from fast food restaurants. So likely the bountiful feedings I provide the crows are an extension of their dumpster diving.

The two birds look almost identical, but they sound very different. As soon as my wife showed me the app, it picked up two types of crows. The American Crow is the one that makes variations of the familiar “caw” sound. The fish crow sounds like “uh-huh” or “huh-huh.” Apparently there are at least two groups of crows frequenting my house, although it isn’t uncommon to hear both vocalizations at the same time as the Merlin app shows. The groups seem to tolerate each other, but I have seen occasional squabbling among the crows which I now wonder might have been between the two species.

The Merlin app also does photos identification, but in my experience unless you’re really set up for it, it’s hard to get decent bird photos. The subject is skittish and usually won’t let you get near. However, occasionally I spot a bird I really want to get on camera.

Excuse the blurriness. It had to be enlarged to be able to see anything. This was taken this winter in suburban Atlanta. From searching the best I came up with was the golden-fronted woodpecker for an identification. I ran it through two free online bird identification programs and they rated it 70-80% chance it was the golden-fronted woodpecker. The problem is that the golden-fronted woodpecker is native to Northern Mexico and small parts of southern Texas. So what would it be doing in suburban Atlanta in the winter.

I ran the image through Merlin and it couldn’t identify it.