Yellow Legged Gull and Merlin App- Hampshire UK (1 Viewer)

[StephenHampshire]

I'd like to ask the Forum's opinion on the ability of the Merlin bird ID app to identify a YLG. I regularly visit a small lake close to my house in Hampshire. There are normally good numbers of water birds present. Tonight I visited, and was pleased to see some good displays from the resident Marsh Harriers and heard several Cetti's warblers. Merlin identified these along with the teal, Canada geese, and mallard present. It also told me there was at leat 1 Yellow Legged Gull present. My gull identifcation skills are not good, I could see some possibilities there, but there are Herring gulls and both Lesser and Greater black backed gulls there too most tomes (although didn't see a GBB tonight) I'd like to ask if the Yellow legged can be reliably identified by sound? I will add that YLG are found on the coast 15-20 miles away quite frequently, but I've not seen reports of them where I am in Hampshire (UK)

 

[MattG]

I have a had a YLG come up on mine when recording sound in my garden but I am near the the coast. I have found the Merlin photo I.d a little hit and miss, get different results if zoomed in a bit more 🤔

 

[01101001]

I wouldn't count on Merlin's photo ID unless confirmed manually. Its sound ID feature seems to generally do a better job but still needs confirmation, and I wouldn't identify gulls on sound (and what about hybrids?). For some more discussion, see my thread below:

Gull by call, Warsaw, Poland, yesterday

It was a Larus gull for sure, and not a Common Gull. The call that drew my attention was a very distinctive nasal 'EH'. BirdNET suggested Lesser Black-backed Gull with rather low confidence, but when I listened to its calls, they sounded spot on. The gull was flying away already when I managed...

www.birdforum.net

EDIT: Regarding Merlin wrongly hearing YLGs:

Did Merlin Bird ID really hear these in my garden?

Hello I am totally new to birding and have zero experience. So please go easy on me. 😬 For the past couple of weeks I have been using the Merlin Bird ID just to see what bird life is around. I was actually really surprised that there was so much variety. This morning at about 5:30am the...

www.birdforum.net

Did Merlin Bird ID really hear these in my garden?

Hello I am totally new to birding and have zero experience. So please go easy on me. 😬 For the past couple of weeks I have been using the Merlin Bird ID just to see what bird life is around. I was actually really surprised that there was so much variety. This morning at about 5:30am the...

www.birdforum.net

 

[StephenHampshire]

I wouldn't count on Merlin's photo ID unless confirmed manually. Its sound ID feature seems to generally do a better job but still needs confirmation, and I wouldn't identify gulls on sound (and what about hybrids?). For some more discussion, see my thread below:

Gull by call, Warsaw, Poland, yesterday

It was a Larus gull for sure, and not a Common Gull. The call that drew my attention was a very distinctive nasal 'EH'. BirdNET suggested Lesser Black-backed Gull with rather low confidence, but when I listened to its calls, they sounded spot on. The gull was flying away already when I managed...

www.birdforum.net

EDIT: Regarding Merlin wrongly hearing YLGs:

Did Merlin Bird ID really hear these in my garden?

Hello I am totally new to birding and have zero experience. So please go easy on me. 😬 For the past couple of weeks I have been using the Merlin Bird ID just to see what bird life is around. I was actually really surprised that there was so much variety. This morning at about 5:30am the...

www.birdforum.net

Did Merlin Bird ID really hear these in my garden?

Hello I am totally new to birding and have zero experience. So please go easy on me. 😬 For the past couple of weeks I have been using the Merlin Bird ID just to see what bird life is around. I was actually really surprised that there was so much variety. This morning at about 5:30am the...

www.birdforum.net

Thank you, I wasn't confident that in the sound ID