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4 min read 5 stepsApril 20, 2026Verified April 2026

Merlin Sound ID: Let Your Phone Listen and Identify Any Bird by Its Call

Merlin Sound ID from Cornell Lab uses your phone's microphone to identify birds by their songs and calls in real time — no prior knowledge needed.

At a Glance

Download Merlin and choose your bird pack

~33s

Search for "Merlin Bird ID" in the App Store or Google Play and install the free app. When you first open it, Merlin asks you to download a "Bird Pack" — a regional dataset that contains the species most likely to appear in your area. Choose "United States" or a more specific regional pack if you prefer. Bird packs download in the background and are stored on your device so Sound ID works without a cell signal.

Quick Tip

Quick Tip: Download the pack over Wi-Fi rather than mobile data — the files can be 100MB or more depending on the region.

Start a Sound ID session

~30s

From the Merlin home screen, tap "Sound ID." The app asks for permission to use your microphone — tap "Allow." Hold your phone with the microphone pointed toward where you hear the birds. Merlin begins listening immediately. Species names appear on screen with a colored waveform showing the sound pattern. The display updates in real time as birds sing and stop.

Quick Tip

Quick Tip: The microphone on most phones is near the bottom edge. Holding the phone upright with the bottom facing a tree gives the microphone the best angle to pick up bird sounds.

Review identified species during the session

~24s

While Merlin is listening, you can see a running list of every bird it has detected. Tap any species name to pause the live identification and read about that bird — its appearance, behavior, and range. Tap "Resume" to go back to live listening. When your session ends, Merlin saves a complete record of every species detected along with the time stamps, which you can export directly to eBird as a checklist.

Use photo ID to identify birds you can see

~32s

In addition to Sound ID, Merlin includes a photo identification feature. Tap "ID a Bird" from the home screen. You can either answer a few questions (size, colors, behavior) to get a shortlist of possibilities, or upload a photo from your camera roll for automatic identification. The photo ID is less accurate than Sound ID for most users but can be helpful when a bird is visible and silent.

Warning

Sound ID works best when you are standing still and quiet. Walking or rustling around creates noise that makes it harder for Merlin to detect bird calls accurately.

Log your sightings to eBird

~24s

After each Sound ID session, Merlin gives you the option to submit the detected species to eBird as a checklist. Tap "Share with eBird" and confirm which species you actually saw or heard (remove any that Merlin may have detected from a far-off or uncertain source). Your observations are then added to the Cornell Lab's global database. You need a free eBird account to submit — see the eBird guide for setup instructions.

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Merlin Bird ID is a free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and its Sound ID feature is one of the most remarkable things you can do with a smartphone in the natural world. Open the app, tap Sound ID, hold your phone up toward a tree or a bird feeder, and Merlin listens. Within seconds it shows you the names of the birds it hears, updated in real time as new songs appear. It works even when multiple birds are singing at the same time.

The feature uses machine learning — a type of artificial intelligence — to recognize thousands of distinct bird songs and calls. It was trained on millions of verified bird sound recordings from the Cornell Lab's Macaulay Library, the world's largest archive of wildlife audio. As a result, Merlin's accuracy is remarkably high for common species, and it continues to improve with updates.

Merlin is completely free. There are no in-app purchases, no subscriptions, and no advertisements. It is available for iPhone and Android. Cornell Lab describes it as a tool designed to get more people connected with birds, and it has succeeded — the app has been downloaded more than 10 million times.

Sound ID works best outdoors in relatively quiet conditions, though it can still pick out birds over moderate background noise like wind or distant traffic. Once a bird is identified in the Sound ID session, you can tap its name to learn more about it through the built-in field guide, which connects to the All About Birds database.

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Official Resources

Apple App Store Support Google Play Help GCFGlobal — Apps

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