A quick reference to ebird is a great way to assess the liveliness of a site measured over the past few days and since some posts are actually made during those crepuscular intervals before dawn, because you can’t tie an avid birder down, it may prognosticate the level of excitement for the day yet to unfold. While ebird might occasionally embellish its report with photographs, it is really more about counting birds, something quaintly called ‘citizen science’ so that the real ornithologists can get a better grasp of the health of species’ populations.
How accurate is this system? A report of three Wood thrushes at a given site strikes me as fanciful. Did the birder actually see three such birds, or was it a case of seeing the same thrush three times. In one case, at Thickson Woods I believe, the report stated quite explicitly that a Wood thrush was heard while in the act of observing one, so that there must be at least two, but I have only once encountered such a fine attention to detail.
Then there is Merlin. An app to identify a species by receiving its audio signature. While not always accurate, this tool is now widely used, although not by me because I neither have a cellphone (and therefore I am app-free) but also because I don’t consider hearing a species as synonymous with seeing a species. True, it could alert one to its presence ... somewhere nearby, a heads-up if you will. That could be useful, but I do that anyway with my ears, of which I have two for better balance. Also, if the bird is in the canopy, or 100 meters across the woods, or on private property, then I cannot photograph it and therefore it might as well be away on-tour. I have no interest in counting birds. That numerical protocol does not get me up early in the morning. Having to pee works every time.
So, my gripe, and I do have one, for I am a lesser shortsighted camo-bellied griper is that an audio pick-up does not constitute a visual sighting and cannot be used to asses #’s of birds. Before Merlin became as widespread as peanut butter a sighting was a sighting and am auditory clue was designated as the letter (h) after the species name, or after the number of ID pick-ups so registered. Now, that is no longer a quotidian practice because Merlin has equated audio with visual but to me never the twain should meet. I don’t imagine many will agree with me because that would imply that there is hope for this out-dated curmudgeon and the adoption of that notion could label one as a dangerous contrarian.
