Railway Dog

I’m new, this week, to birding. Railway Dog and I were hiking with some lovely people from Germany and their dogs in Nida, Lithuania, a few mornings ago. I’ve downloaded the apps one of them recommended: Birdnet and BirdLasser, and in the process found Merlin. Merlin seems to combine the two, with both identification and keeping a note of what you have identified.

It’s quite addictive, particularly identifying all the birds I can hear. Staying in the Gauja National Park helps, as the place is so full of high quality habitats, particularly river and forest. I’m mainly doing the ID by sound as I’m not that good at spotting and don’t have binos with me. But some of them come close. So I guess I can’t say I’m bird watching so much as bird listening.

There are databases of bird songs and calls included in the apps. I played a buzzard calling from the Merlin app to the blackbird and tree sparrow on the roof. The sparrow didn’t really react much, though it did go quiet, but the blackbird was looking all around and tilting its head sideways to look up.

Baspie the Railway Dog is just happy to be out. He rarely gets confused by sounds coming from my phone. He knows it’s all lies!