{"id":21349,"date":"2025-12-27T12:37:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/27\/it-brings-you-closer-to-the-natural-world-the-rise-of-the-merlin-birdsong-identifying-app\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T12:37:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:37:15","slug":"it-brings-you-closer-to-the-natural-world-the-rise-of-the-merlin-birdsong-identifying-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/27\/it-brings-you-closer-to-the-natural-world-the-rise-of-the-merlin-birdsong-identifying-app\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It brings you closer to the natural world\u2019: the rise of the Merlin birdsong identifying app"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merlin has been trained to identify the songs of more than 1,300 bird species around the world<\/p>\n<p>When Natasha Walter first became curious about the birds around her, she recorded their songs on her phone and arduously tried to match each song with online recordings. After a friend recommended Merlin Bird ID, a free app, she tried it in her London garden and was delighted to discover the birds she assumed were female blackbirds \u2013 \u201cthis is how bad a birder I was\u201d \u2013 were actually song thrushes and mistle thrushes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m obsessed with Merlin \u2013 it\u2019s wonderful and it\u2019s been a joy to me,\u201d says Walter, a writer and human rights activist. \u201cThis is what AI and machine-learning have been invented for. It\u2019s the one good thing!\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/dec\/27\/merlin-ai-assisted-birdsong-identifying-app-bird-species\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/33efd95d5d247c7af1362ae515bc0e0ed8d00875\/333_0_3542_2835\/master\/3542.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=19fd9a8bc3da7ca229b1b07a1686a422\" title=\"\u2018It brings you closer to the natural world\u2019: the rise of the Merlin birdsong identifying app\" \/>Merlin has been trained to identify the songs of more than 1,300 bird species around the world<br \/>\nWhen Natasha Walter first became curious about the birds around her, she recorded their songs on her phone and arduously tried to match each song with online recordings. After a friend recommended Merlin Bird ID, a free app, she tried it in her London garden and was delighted to discover the birds she assumed were female blackbirds \u2013 \u201cthis is how bad a birder I was\u201d \u2013 were actually song thrushes and mistle thrushes.<br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019m obsessed with Merlin \u2013 it\u2019s wonderful and it\u2019s been a joy to me,\u201d says Walter, a writer and human rights activist. \u201cThis is what AI and machine-learning have been invented for. It\u2019s the one good thing!\u201d Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merlin has been trained to identify the songs of more than 1,300 bird species around the world When Natasha Walter first became curious about the birds around her, she recorded their songs on her phone and arduously tried to match each song with online recordings. After a friend recommended Merlin Bird ID, a free app, &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/27\/it-brings-you-closer-to-the-natural-world-the-rise-of-the-merlin-birdsong-identifying-app\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u2018It brings you closer to the natural world\u2019: the rise of the Merlin birdsong identifying app<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":21350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21349"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}