This new program identifies birds with just a photo

By Elahe Izadi June 6

Users helped train Merlin to recognize 400 bird species, including the Blackburnian warbler shown here, by clicking on parts of the birds to provide information to the computer. (Cornell University)

There’s a big world out there and it’s full of birds. But figuring out the names of those birds can be intimidating and difficult work for the novice among us.

Enter Merlin Bird ID, a program that lets you upload your bird pictures and then uses computer-vision technology to present possible species. It’s sort of like Shazam, but for birds. The mobile app asks the user questions about the bird to generate a list of possible species, even accompanied by bird calls. Read more.