Are you a nature photographer and love to take pictures of birds? I like to take them too, but my small problem is, I don’t know the name of all the birds I take pictures. To identify birds from photo Cornell University created an app called “Merlin” which identify birds and gives them a photo ID. The tool is very impressive and easy to use. Merlin app is available for Android, iOS and web at the moment. Regardless the platform you are using, you will be able get bird photo ID from your device.
They have about 400 bird species from North America and Canada. Plenty of nature and wildlife photographer helped them by providing pictures.
Enough, how can I do it?
Miyoko Chu, senior director of communications at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology wrote a nice post about Bird Photo ID application. As I mentioned earlier that the app works with mostly all platforms, you can download and install the app for your Android, iOS and follow this link for the desktop version (will work with Chrome, Firefox and Safari).
I’ve tried it on with few different birds pictures that I’ve taken last month in UK. Surprisingly, the software was able to ID them too. After you upload a picture, the app will ask you to put some markers using a guided process. Once done, it processes the image and gives you “Best Matches”, you can find your bird from the list.
This made my life easier and I no longer have to go through a long process to identify birds. Though this is mainly for birds from North America and Canada, but works with other birds from different places as well. The service is completely free for anyone. So, give it a try if you are looking to ID your bird photos.
Via: Engagdet | Source: Cornell University