Habitat Galleries: Get to Know the Spaces Birds Call Home
Finding birds starts with knowing where to look. Today, Merlin is excited to announce Habitat Galleries, a new feature that shows you exactly where each species spends its time, season by season. Whether you’re using Merlin for the first time or have experience in the field, understanding habitat is one of the most powerful skills you can have to help identify birds
Why Habitat Matters
Birds don’t appear at random. From the brushy washes and cactus-studded arroyos that Gambel’s Quail call home, to the alder and willow thickets where American Redstarts breed each summer, the habitats birds rely on are as varied as the birds themselves. Habitat shapes how a species finds food, reproduces, and stays safe from predators. Over time, birds have evolved specialized traits to thrive in these environments — and habitat often becomes a signature of a species’ identity.
There are four broad categories of habitat to know:
- Woodland habitats: coniferous or deciduous forests and trees
- Aquatic habitats: lakes, ponds, swamps, marshes, oceans, and shorelines
- Scrub-shrub habitats: short woody plants and bushes
- Open habitats: grasslands, agricultural fields, and tundra
Once you learn what kinds of birds depend on each habitat, you have a quick, reliable shortcut for identifying birds in the field. A simple question — does this bird live in this habitat? — can instantly narrow down your options.
Get to Know Habitat Galleries in Merlin
Imagine you’re out birding and Sound ID picks up a species you’ve never seen. Now, you can head straight to that species’ account and see exactly where to look to find it, based on photos of the places it spends time in, not only a range maps.
Open any species account in Merlin and you’ll find a swipeable carousel of habitat photos tucked between the Nearby Places button and the identification text. Each image comes with a short caption explaining why that habitat matters for that bird.
Photos are tagged by season: Breeding, Migration, Nonbreeding, and Year-Round, and the gallery automatically opens on the season that matches the current time of year. Tap any photo for a full-screen view, pinch to zoom, swipe between images, or double-tap to switch to landscape. A legend explains each season category alongside the species’ range map.
Habitat Galleries download with your Bird Pack and are cached for offline use, so they’re there whenever you need them, even on your back country adventures without a signal.
Available Now
For the initial release, Habitat Galleries are available for common birds of North America, with more species rolling out in future updates.
Explore the feature now with these featured species:
Open Merlin, find a species, and discover the world it calls home.