Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab

Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab

Cornell University · 4.8 ★ · FREE

Screenshots

Description

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
• Merlin has bird 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.

Developer

What's New

Version 3.9 · May 23, 2026

What’s new in 3.9: Observation Deck: Your Merlin home screen now features a swipeable daily feed showcasing Bird of the Day, stunning featured photos, and bite-sized bird tips! Each contains a full-screen view for photos and videos, plus a "Learn more" button to dive deeper into species accounts or related content. Habitat Photos: Discover where birds live with our new carousel of habitat photos curated for a subset of species, making it easier than ever to find the birds near you or further afield! New language support for Kyrgyz and Welsh. Improvements and new species added to Photo ID. Bug fixes and improvements.

Ratings & Reviews

4.8

13,647 ratings

Recent Reviews

SpaceMD

v3.8.4

Bird name in other languages?

This is a great app for identifying birds. I like that it shows you in real time which bird is singing. However, I would like to see the bird name in other language languages, such as French for me. The app can be displayed in another language however, the bird name seem to be only in English. I would like to see it at least bilingual. Also I would like it to populate the bird list from our observation directly. And be able to sort by the most observed bird. Maybe also adding a map of where we observed birds.

May 22, 2026

duhdhehdjd

v3.8.4

Bruh

Was so good then just started freezing and being slow. Only one bird pack downloaded

May 22, 2026

socks0603

v3.8.4

So helpful as a new birder

Trying to learn bird calls, and this provides great assistance in not only ID-ing but also in visualizing the sound on a spectrogram. Highly recommend for anyone trying to learn more about birds. I even know people who are quite experienced who still use it as a second set of ears.

May 20, 2026

Haydeniscoooooollll

v3.8.4

Pokémon go for birds

I can literally catch birds using this app and then have them on a lifetime list?! AND THERES RARES?!?! This app has gotten me into birds and I love it

May 19, 2026

3247756

v3.8.4

Very useful app but some down sides

I use this on my walks quite often and I like recording what birds are supposedly here or not Speaking of which, useful app yeah but would be better if when ever you find a bird that it saves what bird you found with the song file attached so you can confirm it with your friends

May 19, 2026

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