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LETTER: Birdsong app 'detrimental' to our feathered friends

App can disrupt nesting, migrating birds, letter writer warns
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OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor. Send your letters to [email protected]. This letter is in response to an article by Jon Vopni that was published June 15.
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Last week a beginning birdwatcher wrote an article published in OrilliaMatters. He and many others had found birdwatching a great hobby in these times of solitude. This is true.

However, he continued on to tell us the values of an app called Merlin, which will play birdsongs, to call in birds for identification and photography.

I feel I must respond, since this is so detrimental to the birds. Early in the year, during migration, a bird may be looking for a good territory, and when he hears that another fake mechanical bird is already there, he leaves, for a poorer territory, rather than fight.

Birds are very busy when they arrive, building a nest, incubating the eggs and defending the nest from predators. Then they must feed the newborn nestlings. Spending time responding to a mechanical bird may result in nest failure. Next year there will be fewer birds.

Playback is prohibited in many parks and refuges.

Enjoy the birds, use Merlin to learn the birdsongs (essential to finding birds), but please do not use it to harass the birds.

Nancy Ironside
Orillia

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