Erik StokstadIt’s a fact of life for birders that some species are fiendishly difficult to tell apart—in particular, the sparrows and drab songbirds dubbed “little brown jobs.” Distinguishing individuals is nearly impossible.
Now, a computer program analyzing photos and videos has accomplished that feat. The advance promises to reveal new information on bird behaviors.“We spend a lot of time with binoculars, hunkered down, staring at birds and their legs,” says Iris Levin, a behavioral ecologist at Kenyon College who was not involved in the new work.