Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab

4.9
115K reviews
5M+
Downloads
Content rating
PEGI 3
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About this app

What's that bird? Ask Merlin—the world’s leading app for birds. Just like magic, Merlin Bird ID will help you solve the mystery.

Merlin Bird ID helps you identify birds you see and hear. Merlin is unlike any other bird app—it's powered by eBird, the world’s largest database of bird sightings, sounds, and photos.

Merlin offers four fun ways to identify birds. Answer a few simple questions, upload a photo, record a singing bird, or explore birds in a region.

Whether you’re curious about a bird you’ve seen once or you’re hoping to identify every bird you can find, the answers are waiting for you with this free app from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

WHY YOU’LL LOVE MERLIN
• Expert ID tips, range maps, photos, and sounds help you learn about the birds you spot and build birding skills.
• Discover a new bird species each day with your own personalized Bird of the Day
• Get customized lists of birds you can find where you live or travel - anywhere in the world!
• Keep track of your sightings—build your personal list of the birds you find

MACHINE LEARNING MAGIC
• Powered by Visipedia, Merlin Sound ID and Photo ID uses machine learning to identify birds in photos and sounds. Merlin learns to recognize bird species based on training sets of millions of photos and sounds collected by birders at eBird.org, archived in the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
• Merlin delivers the most accurate results thanks to experienced birders, who curate and annotate sightings, photos, and sounds, who are the true magic behind Merlin.

AMAZING CONTENT
• Choose bird packs that contain photos, songs, and calls, and identification help for anywhere in the world, including Mexico, Costa Rica, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, Australia, Korea, Japan, China, and more.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s mission is to interpret and conserve the Earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds and nature. We are able to offer Merlin for free thanks to the generosity of Cornell Lab members, supporters, and citizen-science contributors.
Updated on
Apr 25, 2025

Data safety

Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. Data privacy and security practices may vary based on your use, region, and age. The developer provided this information and may update it over time.
No data shared with third parties
Learn more about how developers declare sharing
This app may collect these data types
Personal info, App activity and 2 others
Data is encrypted in transit
You can request that data be deleted

Ratings and reviews

4.9
114K reviews
Ian Thompson
April 10, 2025
Now back in action, top form, helpful in finding out just what that bird over there is! It's easy to edit sound files and then reload them for analysis (I'll not be doing another 45-minute recording again...). The photo identification tool works even if the image isn't pin-sharp. My only issue is that the map isn't intuitive - I search a location, Google finds it, but there no option to create/add to a personal location list. At the moment, I have to zoom & scroll about the map to pick a place.
7 people found this review helpful
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Nick Savage
April 19, 2025
great at identifying birds from audio and comprehensive list of birds with detailed. however the recording of birds seen is a little tricky to use. It requires you to create a named location or use a previous one and to do this it needs to connect to the internet which is slow in areas with poor mobile phone signal. Same when saving a record
2 people found this review helpful
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John Barrow
April 11, 2025
I love the sound option where you can simply press "Play" and it listens and identifies all the birds around and very sensitive. It picks up birds I can only just hear in the distance. Will be useful when travelling as also has off-line details of all the recognised birds. Not tried the "Identity by photo" yet but expect that to match the quality of the sound option.
31 people found this review helpful
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What’s new

Get ready for bird migration with better ID tools and flexible downloads!

Sound ID update: Merlin is now more responsive, so you'll see more IDs as Merlin listens to the birds around you.

Photo ID update: Trained in bird ID with over 6 million practice photos, Merlin can identify your photos better now than ever before.

Smaller and more flexible downloads: Download bird info as you go, or download information for a whole region at once for offline use!

Happy birding!