Day 14.213: Birding by sound

The Cornell Lab's phone app, Merlin Bird ID has had mixed success for me in identifying birds from photos. Usually, if the photo is good enough to identify the bird, I can do fine leafing through Peterson's Field Guide. However, they recently added the option to identify birds by sound and I am loving it!

I first tried it on our first evening of our vacation on Saddleback when we heard the white-throated sparrows calling to one another in the trees outside. We soon became quite familiar with the pretty songs (sometimes a rising tune and sometimes a descending one) and I eventually caught one in the act and reported on it here.

On our walk at Saco Heath at the weekend, we used it again while walking - and although we didn't need help to identify the crow calls, the other pretty tune turned out to be a hermit thrush like the one I photographed there a while ago. Here's a screen grab showing the hermit thrush song:

And if you turn the volume up you can hear it for yourself in this video: