Royal Tern © Melissa James / Macaulay Library
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Why is there an update button on a bird pack?
Are you going to add more species to Merlin Bird ID?
How can I contribute to new Bird Packs?
About Bird Packs
Merlin’s free bird identification tool and field guide can help you identify more than 7,500 species of birds. These species are divided up into Bird Packs, which allow you to download just the species found in a given region. Choosing what content to download lets you personalize Merlin to cover your regions of interest and reduces the demand on your phone’s storage.
Merlin can use your phone’s location to suggest the pack for the region nearest to you. You can download just your local region or download packs from around the world! Merlin’s Bird ID wizard, Photo ID tool, and photos, descriptions, and sounds cover over 7,600 species. Click here to download Merlin for free on your iPhone or Android.
Photo ID works without Bird Packs, but it won’t have any information about the species it suggests! Downloading Bird Packs will let you compare photos, ID tips, and sounds of the suggested species right in the app. Once the Bird Pack is downloaded, you can also use the 5-Question ID wizard. Plus, all of the information in the Bird Pack will be available offline for easy reference any time.
How do I delete a Bird Pack?
From the Bird Pack list, you can delete a Bird Pack by tapping on the description, and then selecting the Delete button.
With an iPhone, you can also swipe from right to left on an installed pack to get a quick delete button. This can be useful when the pack you want to delete has an available update which hides the delete button.
Why is there an update button on a bird pack?
The team at the Macaulay Library is constantly adding new audio and photos to Merlin, and we continue to add, edit, and translate more identification text. Additionally, when a species is split into two species, or there is a name change, we update Merlin to account for this. Tapping the update button will download the new info so your Merlin Bird ID app is always up to date.
Are you going to add more species to Merlin Bird ID?
We’ll keep working on adding more species. We appreciate your patience, since “teaching” Merlin new species requires extensive data collection, testing, and troubleshooting. We’re working on the most common species first, but we’re interested to hear what species you’d like to be included the most. Please feel free to email us with suggestions. Click here to explore all of the regions we currently cover.
How can I contribute to new Bird Packs?
There are many ways you can contribute to a Merlin expansion into a new region. Help Merlin expand to your region!
We need 500 or more photos of each species we include in the Photo ID feature in Merlin. You can contribute by uploading your images with eBird checklists.