Seen on a recent eBird checklist:
"Heard clearly singing near trail, confirmed by Merlin."
If you need the Merlin app to confirm a bird song, then you do not know the song.
Would you trust confirmation from a birder who can't tell a goldfinch's chatter from an Indigo Bunting's song, mistakes frogs for shorebirds, or confuses a whining dog with a Cedar Waxwing? An experienced naturalist instantly distinguishes avian calls from insects, amphibians, mammals, or even leaf blowers. Meanwhile, Merlin remains oblivious to whether a birder is using playback, lacking any awareness of field ethics or context.
Field expertise matters far more than technology.
What Merlin provides is pattern matching, not understanding. It's the difference between recognizing a face and knowing the person. The experienced naturalist has contextual knowledge, ethical awareness, and a holistic understanding of Nature’s soundscape that no app will ever replicate.
Recently, when a young birder standing beside Dottie and me expressed awe at our ear identification skills, he remarked, "That's impressively old school—I wish I could do that!" We encouraged him to keep at it and offered advice and methods on how to learn them without the use of technology.
What's particularly telling is how he framed it as "old school," as if it's a quaint novelty rather than a fundamental birding skill. It's like someone saying they wish they could read without using text-to-speech technology. The desire is there, but perhaps not the recognition that this "old school" skill is actually more efficient and reliable than the "new school" alternatives.
The interaction also highlights how technology has created a perceived gap in skills that didn't previously exist. Earlier generations of birders simply had to learn these skills out of necessity—there was no Merlin app to fall back on. Today's birders face a choice between investing the time to develop these abilities or potentially remaining dependent on digital aids.