Hi. I need some advice. I recently uploaded the Merlin birdsong app. I love it, and can see, or hear, it's pretty good as it identifies birds I recognise. But, is it reliable because today it identified a couple of very rare birds so I have my doubts? I was walking around the river Tillingbourne in Shere, Surrey, and Merlin identified a Song Sparrow and a Roufus Bellied Thrush, both of which seem extremely unlikely to me. Any advice? Thanks
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Merlin Birdsong App. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Jambug
- Start date
LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese
Well-known member
Location is part of the ID process so typically if the app is showing your accurate location the IDs are plausible. If the screen says 'Location unknown' at the top any claim worldwide can show up. This happens to me a lot on a fluctuating basis.
Thanks. As good as the app seems to be, it does have it's flaws. For example, more often than not it doesn't recognise the location, even though I regularly visit that location. Also it rarely stores the list of birds heard in 'My Sound Recordings'. In real time it's usually fine. Today it has not recognised my location or stored the list of songs it identified. I have learned to write them down before stopping the recording. As such do you agree those 2 birds identified are highly unlikely?
LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese
Well-known member
If it was me I'd ignore them although Song Sparrow is a rare vagrant to the UK. After a while you will get used to checking the location display when an odd ID comes up. Bear in mind that most IDs work regardless in my experience.
Vagrant? That's a bit harsh 🤣 Migrant surely?
Thank you. I tend to agree.
Strontium Dog
Well-known member
I only use mine offline, so I only downloaded the European birds pack. Is there not a way of setting your location to Europe so it doesn't trigger false positives?
LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese
Well-known member
Sound ID doesn't use the data packs, it's a separate neural network. It uses your device location services so you are at the mercy of the device until they program it to cache the last good location (a pretty obvious programming technique).
Thanks for the technical advice but alas you're wasting your breath as I'm a tech dullard. I thought I'd done well just uploading the app!!! Sorry🤦♀️
Hello and welcome to the forum, enjoy and all the best.
Thank you 👍Welcome aboard Jambug and enjoy
Brad Hacker
birder-photographer
You can see the list of birds supported by Sound ID by tapping "settings" and then "Supported Birds". It's currently at 1382 spp. eBird "needs a minimum of 150 sound recordings for each species to train Merlin to recognize their sounds"
jurek
Well-known member
Interesting! A human can recognize a bird sound with many times less than 150 examples. So machine learning is much less effective.
It also means that Merlin will not learn to identify most or all birds in reasonable future, because rare birds will not have 150 recordings available. Probably even worse, because most species produce several different sounds, which AI would have to learn separately from 150 examples of each. That is, unless the AI algorithm will change significantly.
To be honest I did think that sounded a bit odd. I'm no tech, in fact quite the opposite, but if AI needs that many examples of bird sounds to form a template, then I cant see how it's going to run the World!!!
Does AI need 150 examples of anything before it can accurately identify it? If so we're in trouble if the Russians start firing missiles at us.
jurek
Well-known member
I think this is the characteristics of the current sound identification software, special for Merlin ID.
Although for example, current AI graphical software seems to suffer from the same weakness - asked to draw a picture of any wild bird it produces some misshapen artiffacts. Probably because it needs 1000s of photo examples to train, and these do not exist for most wild birds.
Although for example, current AI graphical software seems to suffer from the same weakness - asked to draw a picture of any wild bird it produces some misshapen artiffacts. Probably because it needs 1000s of photo examples to train, and these do not exist for most wild birds.
Mark Jarrett
Up Ont’ Moors
On a similar theme, I have iPad where I keep the bird photos I have taken. You can touch the screen on any particular photo and it will give the technical information, ie. Camera and lens make & model, settings etc. Recently, I have noticed that a little round symbol has appeared (on the bird in the photo) and if you further click on that, it will tell you the species.
It doesn’t work on distant shots or say, on a cliff face full of Guillemots but, with a relatively close-up shot, it seems to. I have a shot of a juvenile Stonechat, so obviously not a classic male in adult plumage and it was spot on..
Times are a changing.
It doesn’t work on distant shots or say, on a cliff face full of Guillemots but, with a relatively close-up shot, it seems to. I have a shot of a juvenile Stonechat, so obviously not a classic male in adult plumage and it was spot on..
Times are a changing.
