Save us from the ID apps

I think most of us in the world of nature observation have tales to tell of dodgy identifications from the various apps. The Merlin is great if you sort of know what you’re listening to, but it can throw you off course and suggest birds that would be pretty much impossible. Sometimes it will claim to have heard such-and-such a species, an Eider Duck, say, far inland, when you can definitely tell that the sound it’s picking up was actually some farm machinery. And, it’s notorious at misidentifying Starling noises as all kinds of other unlikely birds. Eider Ducks The ObsID app is very useful when you’re checking the moth trap of a morning and have some new, but only vaguely familiar micros or whatever. It will give you a quick clue and you can go to your moth books or the UK Moths site to check and verify or if you’re really stuck, ask the marvellous Sean Foote who will give you the definitive answer to even the most obscure Lepidopteran. At this time of year, there are very moths…