Beyond Merlin! … Using, Building or Buying Birdsong Listening Devices … Live in person presentation by me, Rich Hoeg, this coming Thursday, Nov. 12th at 7 pm

Details: Monthly meeting of the Northeastern Minnesota Bird Alliance (formerly Duluth Audubon) held at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth near UMD.

All Welcome. No Cost to Attend.

More details … Link to the Duluth Northeastern Minnesota Bird Alliance

Most folks know Cornell’s birding app, Merlin. While out birding, this app does a good job of identifying birds singing in the immediate vicinity. However, Merlin requires the birder to be present and “push record”. This leads to the question … what if you want to both know and identify what birds are singing at your house, cabin and/or out on the trails 24/7 year round? Enter into the equation, birdsong listening devices.

In his presentation Rich will review the leading consumer and self-built birdsong listening devices. His review will speak to the costs and advantages of the various devices and attempt to answer the question … build or buy a device? What if a person has no desire to build or buy a device? Rich will also cover how anyone may use the global network of birdsong listening stations AT NO CHARGE WITH NO ACCOUNT REQUIRED to learn what birds are singing throughout the world. Thus, a person NEED NOT BUILD OR BUY a birdsong listening station to benefit from the thousands and thousands of global listening devices. Rich will demonstrate how he used BirdWeather.com before and during trips to both Ireland and Costa Rica to focus his birding adventures. Closer to home, Rich will also explain how to use listening stations located across northeastern Minnesota including but not limited to Sax-Zim Bog and Hawk Ridge.

Rich Hoeg grew up and lives in Northeastern Minnesota’s Boreal Forest. As a child the wilderness was his playground. Using his forest knowledge, for 13 years he has volunteered at Sax-Zim Bog. However, Rich also knows Minnesota’s other Bog lands (not just Sax Zim) and maintains bird feeders, trailcams, and birdsong listening stations used for research deep in the wilderness. Over the past few years he has donated birdsong listening devices which he built, programmed and configured that have helped nature centers and private individuals learn “what is singing” at their locations 24×7 year round. During his travels he uses a Sony A6300 to document his sightings and maintains a nature oriented website (365DaysOfBirds.com) which gets hundreds of thousands of pageviews per year. In his prior life, Rich was a software program manager for Honeywell.

Link to Merlin Sound ID Project Overview