Ever caught sight of a beautiful bird, but struggled to identify it easily? There’ an app for that. Merlin, a new bird app released by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in partnership with Birds in the Hand, can now help birders around the country figure out which species they’re seeing. “We realized that a lot of people online are searching for help identifying birds,” says Jessie Barry, Merlin project leader. “It’s tricky when you open a field guide to narrow in on the birds that are likely to be near you, so we wanted to make something that was really simple for beginners to identify a bird.” And simple it is. First, answer five simple questions: When and where did you see the bird? What color was it? What was the bird doing? How big was it? Voila, up on your screen pop up photos of possible species, customized to time of year and location, thanks to the incorporation of data collected from the eBird citizen-science project. Click on one of the photos, and the app...