Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

How Smart is a Bird Call App?

Long ago, we established that I am, at best, a halfwit in matters of identifying birds by their calls. Perhaps you recollect my blog from a few weeks ago when both I and my brother-in-law thought a backhoe starting its engine in the distance was a bird calling in a mate.

While sitting in my hot tub the other day, a realization suddenly struck me. For several years now, I have not heard a very distinctive warbling that regularly emanates from the juniper and pines on the hill below my house. More disturbingly, I have no idea what bird sings the song.

I wondered, 'Has the bird vanished from my landscape?'

Thinking I might be able to identify the bird with a bird call app, I navigated to the Play Store on my smartphone and downloaded a highly-rated bird call identification app. Once I installed it, I launched the app and then whistled the song I used to hear into my phone.

The app immediately responded with this: “That is likely a human.”

Cursing, I immediately uninstalled the app and grabbed myself a beer.

—Mitchell Hegman

No comments:

Post a Comment