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Merlin ID not recognising heron gull. (1 Viewer)

TismeSue

TismeSue

Member
United Kingdom
Hi, I have just started using Merlin in my garden in Montrose, Scotland.
Being a coastal town, there are always plenty of gulls.
I noticed that the app was not picking up the gulls at all, whether they were screeching overhead or a little further away. It was picking up barely audible bird sounds through the noise.
It's almost as though it's programmed to ignore them. Does anyone have any insight on this?
 
It has done something very similar for me picking up small birds i.e robin in the vicinity but totally missing a pheasant that was calling at full volume in the same area. Is it registering on the sonogram that comes on your phone screen when it picks up bird sounds. For some reason it often registers the sound being made but can't identify if still.
There are some really informative threads about the app on here if you have a search.
 
Andy Lakin said:
It has done something very similar for me picking up small birds i.e robin in the vicinity but totally missing a pheasant that was calling at full volume in the same area. Is it registering on the sonogram that comes on your phone screen when it picks up bird sounds. For some reason it often registers the sound being made but can't identify if still.
There are some really informative threads about the app on here if you have a search.
Click to expand...
That's interesting.
I don't believe the sonogram was showing the gulls, because I remember thinking about that at the time.
Unfortunately I can't be sure as the sonogram is now blank for some reason. It is still playing the recording but no display.
I'll try again tomorrow.
Thank you, I'll check out Merlin posts too.
 
leifvester said:
I believe that Merlin is designed (and trained) to identify a single bird at a time.

If you have a chorus of sound, it's going to struggle because the sonograph will be very noisy.
Click to expand...
That makes sense. However, in this case, I'm pretty sure it was just one gull that was the main, loud sound, but like I said it picked up another bird that I could barely hear. Strange that it seemed to ignore the most obvious and overriding sound.
 
Same story down here in Dundee. Noticed it myself a few weeks ago. Not sure if there's been an update that has caused it, but except in summer (Lesser Black Backeds about too), Herring Gulls are more or less the only gulls around here (urban setting) and it always used to pick them up/out.
 
I've had similar problems as well. I had a Dusky Flycatcher calling in a 15 ft. tree next to me, and it was loud enough. But the Merlin app didn't recognize it, and it was the only bird around, not in a noisy setting. I think the APP does have some limitations.
 
Yes, it is strange. The sonogram was clearly picking it up this morning, but no bird sound identified.
 

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Possibly as a result of the taxonomic change relating to Herring Gull?

This had produced various knock on effects in the Bird Packs with American Barn Owl colonising the world & I suspect that it may also cause an issue on sound identification programming.

Actually, thinking about it, I wonder whether this also played a role in the App's love of claiming Yellow-legged Gulls historically.

I do not know enough (or indeed anything) about the vocal differences within the Herring Gull splits to know if this is a credible link to the Yellow-legged Gull issue.

All the best

Paul
 
Paul Chapman said:
Possibly as a result of the taxonomic change relating to Herring Gull?

This had produced various knock on effects in the Bird Packs with American Barn Owl colonising the world & I suspect that it may also cause an issue on sound identification programming.

Actually, thinking about it, I wonder whether this also played a role in the App's love of claiming Yellow-legged Gulls historically.

I do not know enough (or indeed anything) about the vocal differences within the Herring Gull splits to know if this is a credible link to the Yellow-legged Gull issue.

All the best

Paul
Click to expand...
Yes, I think you could be right, well done. Apparently yellow legged gull has been included in this species in the past!
I didn't realise there was so much confusion over their taxonomy. And if the yellow legged gull problem is no longer happening, that would also make sense, that it's been temporarily (hopefully) removed.
Thank you Paul. 😊
 
I have similar problems with Merlin picking ome species immediately and others poorly, despite them showing well on a sonogram.

Paul Chapman said:
I do not know enough (or indeed anything) about the vocal differences within the Herring Gull splits to know if this is a credible link to the Yellow-legged Gull issue.
Click to expand...

At least the long 'cascade' call of Yellow-legged Gull is recognizably different from the Herring Gull. I don't know if it is diagnostic, and it is an interesting hole in the identification of European birds, the area where one might expect that everything is already known.
 
The split to which I was referring was the recent European/American Herring Gull split in eBird. The Merlin Bird pack for Europe contains no European Herring Gull vocalisations. I cannot recall if pre-split the recordings for the (super)species were from the United States. If there are no labelled vocalisations on the Bird Pack, it seems unlikely that the sound identification App will recognise the species for a while until they sort out the underlying reference material.

My experience has been the sound App calling Lesser Black-backed Gull vocalisations as Yellow-legged Gull in the past.

All the best

Paul
 
Last edited:
TismeSue said:
Hi, I have just started using Merlin in my garden in Montrose, Scotland.
Being a coastal town, there are always plenty of gulls.
I noticed that the app was not picking up the gulls at all, whether they were screeching overhead or a little further away. It was picking up barely audible bird sounds through the noise.
It's almost as though it's programmed to ignore them. Does anyone have any insight on this?
Click to expand...
I have the same issue. Even when I upload a photo ID using a screenshot of the Herring Gull from the app itself, it says it's a Caspian Gull or Mediterranean Gull. It's also not picking up on obvious birds like Carrion Cross. It will pick up on garden birds like sparrows, but it's taking a while for them to be picked up. Also, when I've uploaded videos I'd done last Spring, as a test, it's not picked up on all the birds it did when I first uploaded the video. I've logged the ticket twice but didn't get much help back. Just asked me to check what packs I had uploaded (which I'd already done).
 
TismeSue said:
Hi, I have just started using Merlin in my garden in Montrose, Scotland.
Being a coastal town, there are always plenty of gulls.
I noticed that the app was not picking up the gulls at all, whether they were screeching overhead or a little further away. It was picking up barely audible bird sounds through the noise.
It's almost as though it's programmed to ignore them. Does anyone have any insight on this?
Click to expand...
I also live by the coast in Guernsey, Channel Islands & also noticed that the app doesn’t identify gull species.
 
Oystercatxher3 said:
I also live by the coast in Guernsey, Channel Islands & also noticed that the app doesn’t identify gull species.
Click to expand...
As has been said in another thread, Merlin only supports 1382 species globally. That is about 12% of the overall species. The coverage is not even. It is strong in North America but not so much elsewhere and the European section was only launched a couple of years ago.

If you look at the list (it is in settings) you can see which species are supposed to be supported. European Herring Gull is not one of these, as Paul suggests this is probably due to the taxonomic change.

I also think that Merlin has got more conservative. Before I am sure it would give a best guess, now it seems to want a match. Not sure if this is real though
 
Muppit17 said:
As has been said in another thread, Merlin only supports 1382 species globally. That is about 12% of the overall species. The coverage is not even. It is strong in North America but not so much elsewhere and the European section was only launched a couple of years ago.

If you look at the list (it is in settings) you can see which species are supposed to be supported. European Herring Gull is not one of these, as Paul suggests this is probably due to the taxonomic change.

I also think that Merlin has got more conservative. Before I am sure it would give a best guess, now it seems to want a match. Not sure if this is real though
Click to expand...
Actually European Herring Gull is one of the supported ones. Although I am on the latest beta and the test notes do say something about increasing sensitivity of picking up bird sounds so maybe they updated the list with the beta.
 
TicoTyler said:
Actually European Herring Gull is one of the supported ones. Although I am on the latest beta and the test notes do say something about increasing sensitivity of picking up bird sounds so maybe they updated the list with the beta.
Click to expand...
How many species to you have supported? I only have Am Herring Gull and not European but Lesser Black backed Gull and YL Gull are supported.
No idea if under LBBG Merlin can cope with Steppe Gull or others of the eastern subspecies - but I guess not
 
Muppit17 said:
How many species to you have supported? I only have Am Herring Gull and not European but Lesser Black backed Gull and YL Gull are supported.
No idea if under LBBG Merlin can cope with Steppe Gull or others of the eastern subspecies - but I guess not
Click to expand...
1373
 

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