Lisa

I have been doing a lot of bird watching as a pandemic escape and the Merlin Bird ID app works fantastic.  Last weekend,  on my hike we spotted a lot of very different birds.  Activity 1:  I found a large hawk size bird and a small sparrow size bird but did not know either one.  With the app's questions, I easily came to a Black-crowned Night Heron and a White-throated Sparrow.  The Heron was such a find as it was sleeping in some bushes.  Activity 2:  I spotted several different kind of woodpeckers.  All had a combination of red, black and white.  I really had to work at telling the difference between a Hairy Woodpecker  and a Downy Woodpecker but I do think I got it once looking at the becks.  The other woodpecker I identified was the the Red-bellied Wookpecker.  It is easier than the other two because their pattern is different.  Activity 3:  I found three different type of birds looking for food and ID them but there food foraging was very different- Great Blue Heron was fishing in the the river, the Black Rumped Warbler was moving around the top of a blooming tree and a White-Breasted Nut Hatch looking for bugs on a tree trunk.  Activity 4: One of my favorite is the Baltimore Oriole.  First spotting of the season,  I used it color scheme-bright orange and black,  its size - robinish and it's call to ID it.   After doing this lesson, I tried the photo id option in Merlin.  I had a picture take of the Oriole and it ID it perfectly.  I would try using it.  My picture quality was not the best and it still worked great.