One Tech Tip: Ditch the chatbots and take your AI nature apps on a birdwatching hike

I didn't notice the scarlet tanager until the alert appeared on my phone: “Merlin heard a new bird!”

Despite its brilliant plumage — jet-black wings on a crimson body — the songbird can be a hard one to spot in a forest because it prefers to stay high in the canopy. It sounds a little like a robin to an untrained ear.

But the free Merlin Bird ID app detected a scarlet tanager was likely nearby by using artificial intelligence to analyze my phone’s live sound recording. I paused my hike, quietly scanned the treetops, saw the bird as it kept singing and clicked a button to add the species to my growing "life list" of bird sightings. Digital confetti burst on my screen.

Like a real-world version of Pokémon Go, a gotta-catch-'em-all drive to add to my Merlin list has helped me find a great kiskadee in Mexico and a rusty-cheeked scimitar-babbler in the Himalayas. But sometimes the greatest revelations are close to home, as more AI nature app users are starting to discover.

“Our stereotypical demographic five years ago would have been retired people and already-avid birders,” said the Merlin app's manager, Drew Weber, of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Now we’re seeing a lot of 20-and-30-year-olds posting stuff on their TikTok or Instagram.”

“Am I a bird person now? Am I a bird person now?” exclaims one incredulous TikTok user whose Merlin app detected a tufted titmouse, a cardinal and a Carolina wren within five seconds of her switching on the app.

Another video shows Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold gushing about the technology.

“That was a northern mockingbird,” says a smirking Darnold, then 27 and now 28, holding his phone up high while sitting in an outdoor lounge chair.

The app isn't always perfect, and mockingbirds — because they mimic other bird sounds — can sometimes confuse the AI. Was that really a great horned owl that flew over your home and hooted while you left the app on record by the window screen? Maybe, maybe not.

“Low-frequency sounds can be challenging because there’s other low frequencies, like cars driving past, that can trick it,” Weber said.

Built-in computer vision technology on newer iPhones and Android devices makes it easier to identify plants and other creatures without having to download an app. Simply look at the flower you just photographed and — on iPhones — a leaf icon appears that, when clicked, can suggest the species.

But their AI accuracy isn't always the best for more obscure fauna and insects — and they are missing the immersive community and citizen science experience that free apps like Merlin and the image-based iNaturalist offer.

Every observation submitted to iNaturalist, run by a nonprofit, and Cornell's Merlin is potentially helping with conservation research as animal extinctions and biodiversity loss accelerate around the world.

iNaturalist’s executive director, Scott Loarie, sees someone's urge to identify a backyard plant as just the start of their engagement with the app. The nonprofit also owns a sibling app, Seek, that is kid-friendly and less complicated.

“Our strategy is really building this community of really passionate, engaged nature stewards who are not only learning and sharing knowledge about nature, but they’re actually huge engines for creating biodiversity data and conservation action,” Loarie said.

Submit an incorrect ID suggested by iNaturalist's AI and someone with real expertise will often politely correct you. Once there's enough consensus, you'll be notified that your observation has made it to “research grade.”

On the search for huckleberry, a favorite of jam makers and grizzly bears, I kept iNaturalist handy on an August hike through the Wyoming wilderness.

And while I had a hard time finding a huckleberry bush, iNaturalist helped me discover other fruits: a type of serviceberry known as the saskatoon; the big-leafed, raspberry-like thimbleberry and the vibrant orange berries of the Greene’s mountain-ash, a type of rowan. After cross-checking many other resources, I tasted all three. The first two were sweet, the last bitter and disgusting.

“You should never trust any sort of automatic ID or a stranger on the internet for something as important as edible plants,” Loarie said. "So, I definitely don’t want to endorse that. But I’d certainly endorse getting to know plants and animals.”

One common thread in the TikTok videos is the joy of discovering the variety of wildlife that live among us, if we pay enough attention.

Elsewhere, I've found it particularly helpful in identifying things to avoid – poison ivy, poison oak, disease-carrying ticks – and things to destroy, like a nymph of the invasive spotted lanternfly that’s now infesting at least 19 U.S. states.

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FILE - Jim Rapp, director of Delmarva Low-Impact Tourism Experiences, looks for birds through binoculars, Aug. 15, 2007 in Girdletree, Md. (AP Photo/Matthew S. Gunby, file)

FILE - In this July 27, 2018 photo, Susan Hewitt photographs a daisy-like weed known as 'shaggy soldier' and adds it to iNaturalist in the New York City EcoFlora project. (AP Photo/Emiliano Rodriguez Mega, file)

FILE - A male scarlet tanager is seen on a tree on World Migratory Bird Day, May 9, 2020, in Lutherville-Timonium, Md. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, file)

FILE - A northern mockingbird appears on April 28, 2015, in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — At a time when Americans are frustrated and angry over the high cost of living, the government released a report Thursday showing that inflation had cooled unexpectedly in November.

But economists quickly warned that that last month's numbers were suspect because they’d been delayed and likely distorted by the 43-day federal shutdown. And most Americans have not felt any let up in the high prices they are paying for food, insurance, utilities and other basic necessities.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that its consumer price index rose 2.7% in November from a year earlier. Yet, year-over-year inflation remains well above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. Americans, dismayed by high prices, handed big victories to Democrats in local and state elections last month.

The inflation report was delayed eight days by the shutdown, which also prevented the Labor Department from compiling overall numbers for consumer prices and core inflation in October and disrupted the usual data-collecting process. Thursday’s report gave investors, businesses and policymakers their first look at CPI since the September numbers were released on Oct. 24.

Consumer prices had risen 3% in September from a year earlier, and forecasters had expected the November CPI to match that year-over-year increase.

“It’s likely a bit distorted,’’ said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm KPMG. “The good news is that it’s cooling. We’ll take a win when we can get it.’’

Still, Swonk added: “The data is truncated, and we just don’t know how much of it to trust.’’ By disrupting the economy – especially government contracting – the shutdown may have contributed to a cooling in prices, she said.

Kay Haigh, global co-head of fixed income and liquidity solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, warned that the November numbers were “noisy ... The canceling of the October report makes month-on-month comparisons impossible, for example, while the truncated information-gathering process given the shutdown could have caused systematic biases in the data.''

Many economists don't expect to get a reliable read on inflation until next month when the Labor Department releases CPI numbers for December.

Energy prices, driven up by sharply higher fuel oil prices, rose 4.2% in November. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose 2.6%, compared with a 3% year-over-year gain in September and the lowest since March 2021.

U.S. inflation remains stubbornly high, partly because of President Donald Trump’s decision to impose double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country on earth along with targeted tariffs on specific products like steel, aluminum and autos.

The president’s tariffs have so far proved less inflationary than economists feared. But they do put upward pressure on prices and complicate matters at the Fed, which is trying to decide whether to keep cutting its benchmark interest rate to support a sputtering job market or whether to hold off until inflationary pressures ease. The central bank last week decided to reduce the rate for the third time this year, but Fed officials signaled that they expect just one cut in 2026.

"The Fed will instead focus on the December CPI released in mid-January, just two weeks before its next meeting, as a more accurate bellwether for inflation,'' said Haigh at Goldman Sachs.

Trump delivered a politically charged speech Wednesday that aired live during prime time on network television, seeking to pin the blame for economic challenges on Democrats.

The speech was a rehash of his recent messaging that has so far been unable to calm public anxiety about the rising cost of groceries, housing, utilities and other basic goods.

As the holiday season approaches, Americans are dipping into savings, scouring for bargains and feeling like the overall economy is sputtering, a new AP-NORC poll finds.

The vast majority of U.S. adults say they’ve noticed higher than usual prices for groceries, electricity and holiday gifts in recent months, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Roughly half of Americans say it’s harder than usual to afford the things they want to give as holiday gifts, and similar numbers are delaying big purchases or cutting back on nonessential purchases more than they would normally.

Trump has promised an economic boom, yet inflation has stayed elevated and the job market has weakened in the wake of his import taxes.

Trump’s tariffs are taking a toll on companies like Wolverine Worldwide, which makes footwear brands like Merrell and Saucony. Facing extra tariff costs of $10 million this year and $55 million in 2026, the Rockford, Michigan, company had to increase prices between 5% and 8% on some products in June, and will have to raise prices again next year. It’s put a freeze on hiring and capital investments.

The company is getting squeezed even as it diversifies its sourcing network away from China, which now makes less than 10% of its products. During Trump’s first term, Wolverine shifted production to Vietnam. Now it’s moving to Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia.

The problem isn’t just the cost of the tariffs. It’s the uncertainty caused by the unpredictable way that Trump rolls them out. “From a business leader’s perspective, it’s one thing if there’s bad news,” said Wolverine CEO Christopher Hufnagel. “Just tell me what the bad news is, and I’ll go work to try to solve for it. It’s the uncertainty of how it actually plays out that causes so much trouble because then we’re modeling all these different scenarios and it seems like things can change in the middle of the night.”

D'Innocenzio contributed to this story from New York.

People shop at the Somerset Collection mall, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Troy, Mich. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)

Shoppers walk around the Somerset Collection mall, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Troy, Mich. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)