However, all of the programs struggled with more complicated calls and would usually punt to incorrect options. Both males and females give a sharp pik call. LAZULI BUNTING: Males sing a fast, jumbled song, and they sometimes vary the order of the notes. Simpler songs such as an American Robin or the two-note call of a Black-capped Chickadee often, but not always, scored a correct hit, or at least got included in a short list of choices. It was quickly evident that all face similar challenges. I compared five different apps designed to automatically identify a birdsong either live or from a recording: Song Sleuth, ChirpOMatic USA, Bird Song Id USA, BirdGenie, and Smart Bird ID. Group 1: Birdsong Recording Identification Apps With these things in mind, I have focused my review on two groups of apps: those that attempt to automatically identify a birdsong in the field or from a recording, and apps that help you strengthen your skills, especially through quizzing and repetition. At each location, he had to perform myriad complex tasks, including filtering out background noises, isolating one bird call from numerous others, comparing calls with his own internal library of information, and, yes, correctly identifying the birds making each sound. This was impressively demonstrated to me recently when I went out birding with my 17-year-old son, who was doing point counts around our neighborhood as part of a senior-year science project. Training a computer program to identify this almost endless variety of sound correctly, it turns out, is a monumental challenge - especially for an app sitting on your phone.Īnd this brings me to the second reason field identification apps are not going to revolutionize your birding any time soon: Even the most advanced algorithms are no match for the human brain. Red-eyed Vireos can potentially create thousands of different songs, though any one bird mercifully uses only a slice of its potential repertoire. Lazuli Buntings, for instance, employ at least 140 different “syllables” in their songs, and no two birds put these together in the same way. Not only are they structurally intricate, but they also exhibit mind-boggling variation both within species and individuals. One is that birdsongs (by which I also include calls) are incredibly complex. I asked myself, “Could any of them remove a key barrier to my own growth as a birder?”įor now, at least, the answer is no - and for two reasons. When I began evaluating field identification apps for this review, I was not only curious about what they could do. In a previous article, I reviewed field guide and listing apps, while here I look at apps that help birders learn and identify birdsongs. As my visual skills increased, however, I realized with dismay that my hearing handicap threatened to limit my ability to pursue my favorite activity permanently. For a while, as I focused on identifying birds by sight, this loss proved mostly an annoyance. Shortly after I began birding about six years ago, my hearing took a swift, dramatic plunge, and I lost many of the higher frequencies utilized by songbirds. For non-scientists, well, learning and identifying bird sounds marks nothing less than the Great Divide between proficiency and expertise.įor me and many others, the ability to identify birdsong carries an added significance. For scientists, being able to identify species automatically by call with the aid of remote microphones and computers has become a holy grail for expanding human understanding of bird populations, behavior, and conservation. In the past few years, the study of birdsong has witnessed an incredible explosion of interest by both scientists and birders. WESTERN MEADOWLARK: Males of this species develop a repertoire of about 10-12 songs that include warbles and gurgling whistles.
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