Editorial

Into the Woods with Merlin

Spring has arrived in Otsego County—at last. The birds are flying around, trying out their songs and leaving their feeder seeds to the squirrels, the daffodils are peeking up through the dirty remains of snow and mud, there’s a big black bear or two sneaking around the bird feeders on Glimmerglen Road, and there’s water pouring off the hills everywhere.

Amazingly, a lot of birds winter over here in the cold, snowy north country. Geese, ducks, and loons spend their quiet dark days near the lakes and streams, although it would not be quite right to call those geese quiet. The great blue heron who lives by the 17th and 18th holes at Leatherstocking Golf Course was here all winter as well, as were the crows, ravens, gulls, chickadees, hawks, eagles, cardinals, juncos, wild turkeys, mourning doves, and turkey vultures, all surviving the cold days with feathers well puffed. There are many birds to see and hear throughout the long winter if one is alert, interested, and outside.

This month, however, our resident birds will be joined, slowly and in good time, by their south-wintering feathered pals, some of whom have already arrived and are busy making gregarious and cheerful noises and searching for safe, cozy sites for their nests. The robins are here, although it is generally accepted that they do not venture far away in the winter, as have the red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows and grackles. Woodpeckers of many species are drumming conspicuously in the woods. In her great tome “Rural Hours,” Susan Fenimore Cooper writes of seeing an oriole on April 11th and a hummingbird on the 27th, followed quickly by swallows and goldfinches.

Over in the Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary in Ithaca, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s 250 scientists, professors, staff, and students comprise the most informed avian stronghold in the world for the study and conservation of birds and their habitats. The lab reports major migration days for Otsego County this year are from May 15-21, a few weeks later than the migration period of Cooper’s in 1848—perhaps, or indeed perhaps not (depending on one’s thoughts) due to climate change.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology was founded in 1915; it now has 75,000 members from the Americas, Western Europe, and India, all of whom provide field information about the comings, goings, habitats, and habits of all species of birds. Such citizen-science projects include feeder-watching, nest-watching and, in partnership with the Audubon Society and Birds Canada, the Great Global Backyard Bird Count, an annual affair during which, in February this year, more than 555,000 participants identified 7,538 species and added 151,291 photographs to Cornell’s well-equipped Macauley Library, the world’s premier scientific archive of natural history audio, video, and photographs.

Merlin Bird ID, a (free) app created by the lab, is designed for beginning and intermediate birdwatchers. With millions of records contributed by birdwatchers around the globe in its database, Merlin will identify a bird by its sound, description or image, and its location. It will also supply volumes of information and photographs about the identified bird’s habits and looks. When a bird is identified the information goes to the Cornell lab through EBird, another (free) app that records where a bird is seen, when it’s seen, and what it is.

Take a hike…with Merlin.