Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
Everyone
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
What’s that bird? Just answer 5 questions, snap a photo, or record its song!


Average Rating

4.9


Number of Ratings

153,230


Number of Downloads

5M+


Contains Ads

False


In-App Purchases

False


Install Fee

Free


More Info

Details

About Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab

What's that bird? Ask Merlin—the world’s leading app for birds. Just like magic, Merlin Bird ID will help you solve the mystery. Merlin Bird ID helps you identify birds you see and hear. Merlin is unlike any other bird app—it's powered by eBird, the world’s largest database of bird ... read more

Permissions Required

Summary

Total Permissions

22

Total Categories

10

Highest Risk

8

Average Risk

5

Counts

2

8

12

0

Rating Details





User Reviews

M M
1
Sunday, July 13, 2025

Cool program, but the app should have the option to not have location tracking (and work - not a Samsung permissions workaround). I can't add birds while recording, and have to take a screenshot if finding multiple new birds or 'fake it' and just search the second/third/etc by name instead of matching to the recording. If it could run in the background while noting new birds this wouldn't be an issue. The image matcher is quite poor compared to how good the audio matching is. Longer recordings!

BD Hodge BD Hodge
36
Saturday, July 5, 2025

The app itself is great but be advised that it uses .WAV files to record the sounds of birds and those files can be huge. I just removed 36 GB of audio off my phone. I couldn't figure out why my phone was running out of space. maybe pick a less large audio format or at least warn people that they are recording WAV files and make them easy to delete from the app

Shea Shea
89
Friday, May 16, 2025

Great app! I love the info about birds, the pictures, the call recordings, etc! It's been so fun keeping an eye (and ear) out for the birds in my area, since it gets me off my phone & interacting with my surroundings for once! My criticisms: 1) I'm unable to see a list of birds that I've sighted for the DAY. All I'm able to do is see the TOTAL list of spotted birds. This affects my feelings of achievement. 2) There are too many steps to log a sighting each time. This affects motivation to log. Edited

Nana B. Nana B.
50
Sunday, June 8, 2025

I like the app overall, very useful. However, the recently added auto-playing of video clips when identifying birds is VERY distracting -- PLEASE make it optional! Also, navigation needs improvement. It's often impossible to return to the main "Identify" page from "My Recordings" without quitting and restarting the app (back button only goes to previous recordings). I also wish Lifelist entries could 1) be sorted by location and 2) show every time/place you've IDed a bird.

Sara Sanders Sara Sanders
220
Thursday, June 19, 2025

This app is so neat! It detects even the faintest birds noises. Once it picks up a bird, it provides a picture and the option of more information. You can save your recordings, too. There's so much to this app that I haven't even explored yet. it's been so cool to see what birds are around me, especially when it detected 14 different species all at once.

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