How to bird like a Hawk

• This isn't some newly adopted Seattle persona.
• Darnold was using Merlin before he became a Seahawk and has apparently mentioned it enough that the free Cornell Lab of Ornithology app name-checks him when describing how its Sound ID feature has entered the mainstream.

How it works: Download the app, hold up your phone, hit the microphone, and Merlin's Sound ID starts suggesting species in real time as it hears their calls.

Zoom in: September gives Darnold plenty to listen for around Seattle as fall migration gets underway.

• Along with familiar year-round chatter from robins, wrens, gulls and crows, he could catch swifts, warblers and thrushes as summer visitors head south and wintering birds begin arriving.

The bottom line: Darnold doesn't even need binoculars to bird like a pro. Just his phone and perhaps a quiet moment away from Lumen Field.