2016.12.05 Monday: After several months of drought, we now are experiencing cold weather with incessant (and much-needed!) rain. Our forecast today even mentioned the possibility of snow flurries by mid-week!
While I am staying indoors, I am getting my "nature fix" by helping to train Merlin ...the birding app (currently for north American birds) by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They are working on incorporating facial recognition technology into their birding app, so hopefully in the near future birders will be able to upload a bird photo taken in the field and be able to get an instant identification.
To train Merlin, they are asking volunteers to just draw a bounding box around the bird in the photo (all photos are from their Macaulay Library) -- or the most prominent bird if there are several. This will help Merlin to be able to see the birds as humans see them.
I have enjoyed getting to see so many pics of beautiful birds! While working on them, I took photos of several of my favorites with my camera, and then collected them into a collage (adding in a couple of my own bird photos).
