The Merlin app really came through this time.

I have written about the smartphone application that identifies birds by their songs and calls a few times before. I always stress, and I’m sure the app creators would agree, to confirm identifications by sight if you can find the bird.

The other day I was walking at a park, and the app showed that a brown thrasher was singing nearby. The app included a red dot by the species name, signifying that it is a rare bird to be seen where I was walking.

My immediate reaction, as a skeptic, was to not believe the app and assume it was a mockingbird instead. I have seen mockingbirds where I was walking several times. Brown thrashers are mimics like mockingbirds, so the misidentification would be understandable.

It took a minute or two to find the bird in question. Indeed, it was a brown thrasher. It was singing from the top of a deciduous tree that was starting to leaf out, which is why it took some time to find the bird. Usually, brown thrashers lurk in thick brush, but when they are singing, they often find a high perch.

After training my binoculars on the handsome bird, there was no question it was a brown thrasher. Its endless song continued as I stopped on the trail and watched and listened to the impressive songster.

The thrasher flew from treetop to treetop, never stopping its impressive singing. I recognized a few of the birds it was imitating, which is always fun to do with thrashers and mockingbirds.

Knowing the bird was a thrasher at this point, its song had a raspier quality to it than that of a mockingbird. Curious, I did an internet search when I got home on the differences between a mockingbird’s and brown thrasher’s song. It turns out, as similar as they are, there are some differences.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website, All About Birds, includes the following about the brown thrasher’s song: “Brown Thrashers, like catbirds and mockingbirds, are mimics with extremely varied repertoires consisting of more than 1,100 song types. The male sings a loud, long series of doubled phrases with no definite beginning or end, described by some people as “plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it.” While mockingbirds tend to repeat phrases three or more times, Brown Thrashers typically sing phrases only twice before moving on. They include somewhat crude imitations of other species in their songs.”

I find it noteworthy that they say the mockingbird sings a phrase three or more times, while a brown thrasher repeats it twice. Also, who am I to disagree with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, but I contest the notion that brown thrashers’ imitations are “somewhat crude.” They sound pretty darn good to me.

Knowing these differences will give me an advantage the next time I hear a mockingbird or thrasher singing nearby. Hopefully, I will retain the information and be able to tell which species is singing without the assistance of Merlin. Obviously, I do not want to come to rely on the app as I work on improving my birding-by-ear skills, but, in my opinion, for a machine to be able to differentiate by song a mockingbird from a brown thrasher is pretty impressive.