Song Sleuth Bird Song Analyzer

Name: Song Sleuth Bird Song Analyzer
Rating: 3.31915 (282 reviews)

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Song Sleuth Bird Song Analyzer

Reference

3.3

282 ratings

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Wildlife Acoustics Inc.

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User Reviews for Song Sleuth Bird Song Analyzer

Great features, but birdsong ID more miss than hit

I actually like the app a lot—for its catalog of birds common to my area, for the compilation of bird songs/calls, and for the illustrations of the birds. The ID is flaky though. Often the app will suggest three birds to match my recording and, to my ear, those birds sound nothing like what I just heard. It is a convenient feature though to be able to toggle back and forth between one’s own recording and the suggested bird songs. What I’ve been doing a lot is recording a bird, then just going down the list of common birds in my area to locate the one I find that sounds similar. That’s how I matched a song to the Carolina wren for which the app suggested three other (and to me distinctly different- sounding) birds. In that way, I’m becoming more familiar with the various bird songs. So the app helps me in that way.

Amy A123, May 21, 2019

Quality Time well spent

I ve learned so much about birds in my community. I agree w others some songs u recorded may not sound like the bird the app identifies,But then again when I do listen to numerous songs a specie may produce, I am baffled that they sound nothing like each other.I’ve spent many hours watching the birds taking pictures of them with my zoom lens. I am now reading books about birds and still using this app to identify birds. Especially in other neighborhoods when I see nee species helps me ID them. It’s great for learning or a first step into Birding. I Purchased a four prong birdfeeder for my backyard which is squirrel proof. I’ve gotten anywhere from the common Cardinals, Blue Jays to numerous finches, Orioles and unfortunately several hawks.I live on Long Island NY..I will be visiting Caumsett park with its 1700 species of birds and spend the day w Song Sleuth.Another great feature is if you do play a certain song there’s a good chance that if that bird is near by they to respond and most of them come very near to listen. Enjoy!!

Aydin991, Jul 17, 2020

This Is Exactly What I was Looking For!

Now I am not an avid birder really, but I enjoy the wildlife drives at various refuge areas. I also enjoy attempting to ID birds when I see them. Right outside my window this dark morning, I can hear the bird well, but I cannot see the bird even a little bit. This ap is perfect for an enthusiast with my level of birding skill and is a whole lot of fun. I love the sharing and map features and plan on having my birding friends family download and install this ap so I can share my sound bytes. I was reading some of the other reviews about “not perfect” or some other such negativity. I would disregard these thoughts and reply with something like, “get a grip, this is an awesome tool and a fun ap”.

Duff Brew, Mar 30, 2020

Great concept-doesn’t work

Every birders wish-just record the song and it IDs the bird for you. I tried it out on several birds which I could see or whose song I was already familiar with. In only one case was the correct bird even among the choices. I then tested it at home on recordings from Cornell Macaulay Library with very poor result. Even the format, giving a choice of three or four birds, isn’t really helpful. If I could see the bird to confirm it I wouldn’t need the app. This format works well for some nature apps like iNaturalist where you can compare their suggestions to an actual plant or insect in front of you or in a photo you took. I gave Song Sleuth two stars versus one as I did find the graph of the recording useful to help me envision the differences between songs in another birdsong learning app I have.

jimmyfritz, Jun 13, 2020

Don’t remove features that work!

I like this app better without the “improvements”. The new selection box makes me select the particular bird song I’m interested in and then makes me select one of the possible matches. If I knew which bird is singing, I wouldn’t need the app in the first place!!We have a wooded area in our backyard which is home to lots of local bird. It’s very rarely that we can actually see the bird that is singing. And that is exactly why I need the app. Making me select the bird species that I think is singing based on short-listed suggestions defeats the purpose. I don’t see a way to turn off the selection box. I’m okay with the app making close guesses as to which bird species it might be based on my location like it did before but now it seems useless to me.

Meghana27, May 20, 2018

poor support - has only ID'd 2 birds correctly in the hundreds of recordings I have made

first the app functionality- if your purchasing this to ID birds by song save your $. In the hundreds of recordings Ive made since 2017 the app has ID'd two birds correctly. As such this app is only used to record songs and upload to eBird for my birdsong life list.second- app support. there is none. i purchased this app in 2017 for 9.99. when i purchased my new phone the app didn't come across and showed that I had to purchase it again. i contacted Wildlife Acoustics who referred me back to the app store. after two hours on the phone and repeating the issue multiple times to multiple representatives at Apple Support I was told to just purchase and download it again. When I did this it said you already own a copy and would I like to download it for free (tell me something I don't know). So if you make this purchase realize you will be wasting time trying to maintain your 9$ purchase on an app that doesn't do what it says it does. Once you realize that good luck with support!

old_grouse_herder, Dec 07, 2019

Finding birds I couldn’t hear

While it may not be perfect it’s no worse than many birding ID by sight apps. It will at least get you going down a path to identify birds by their songs and calls. When it hears more than one animal it will give a few suggestions based on all of the sounds it picks up. It heard a gray squirrel, a toad and a chipmunk along with several birds on one recording. As the Brits might say, I was gobsmacked this morning when the only sounds from our deck was animals (no lawn mowers, traffic or other background noise). It identified a Pileated woodpecker. I’ve only seen a few pileated woodpeckers and had never heard one, as far as I knew before running the app. I was unable to confirm the pileated by sight, but have no doubt it was there after I was able to isolate its call from the other animals several times. Song Sleuth opens up a new avenue for finding birds and making an ID when you are clueless (or just have a brain fart like this old man has frequently 😁).

onyonet photo studios, Jun 13, 2020

Very much appreciated

I begin painting watercolors of birds about a year ago and because of that I became an avid birderand I’m learning all I can about birds and now I’m learning to identify birds by their songs. I’ve only tried the half out for one day so far but within the first four times of using it I got two correct birds from their songs. I really appreciate having the spectra grams to look at and compare with other bird songs. It helps me remember the songs because I am very visual. From my experience using other apps to record Birdsong‘s this is by far the best one. The bird songs are more clear and concise and you have the option of clarifying them further. If I think it’s a different bird then the three birds suggested I would like to be able to input that and keep the recording but I don’t know how to do that yet or if it’s even possible. I also appreciate that you can change the state that you’re in and thereby receive indications of the most common birds in that area. I’m going on vacation soon to several different states and I will be using this to help me identify Birdsong‘s. Nothing is perfect but I tend to disregard the negative impressions I read about regarding this app because to me it’s a godsend!

queen of jackass hill, May 07, 2021

Helpful, but not flawless

This app is fascinating. The accuracy on identifying the birds is hit or miss, which is to be expected especially when there is background noise. Isolating the call doesn’t always work, but it does help. The most interesting part to me about this app is seeing the spectrograms. The I’m starting to see patterns for the individual species. I’m a visual learner so this is going to help me see and hear the calls to aid in identification. Also, saving calls for my local birds is a godsend. Birds seem to have a different dialect depending on region. Now I can save recordings of my local birds to compare. Don’t know if the ability is in the app yet as I am only just exploring this, but it would be nice if my calls could be added to the information page for individual species maybe on a separate tab, so I could quickly reference my local recordings.My only complaint is that the rarity of the birds is inaccurate. For example, in my area eastern wood peewees are considered scarce by the app, but they are quite common in the woods. Perhaps the app will get smarter as more people record bird calls. But it’s a good start. I’ve already spent hours and hours playing around with it and I absolutely love it!

Shadow9cat, May 24, 2018

Think Big Picture

As a lot of other reviews have pointed out, the ID feature of this app is hit or miss. I’ve been using it for over a year now and have figured out how to isolate the songs I’m trying to record a little better. Even so, it’s accurate less than 50% of the time. However, this is still the best app I’ve found for recording birds. And has a lot of great features!- It records an a loop so that when you hit record, it includes the previous three seconds in your recording. This is huge! I’ve nailed so many more recordings that I never would have gotten without letting the recorder run for a minute or more waiting for the bird to song again. - It provides you a visualization of song to help remember it. - It geotags all your recordings- It organizes your recordings with file names including date/time and species name (if known). I know everyone is looking for a Shazam for bird songs. This is not it, but it allows you to make great recordings and keep them organized and sometimes it helps you identify the songs. That’s pretty good!

timmyg2kx, Jul 03, 2019

Description

Song Sleuth turns your iPhone or iPad into a bird song analysis powerhouse covering the 200 most common vocalizing land birds in North America. Developed by Wildlife Acoustics, in collaboration with world-renowned bird expert and illustrator David Sibley, the app records bird songs, allows you to compare your songs to known species, has a reference to research and learn bird song, and even suggests matching species. Not just for beginners, the app also has features for intermediate birders who might need an identification hint or wish to study the included example recordings to take their ear birding to the next level.

Advanced birders who don’t need any identification help will appreciate the ability to make and keep recordings for further study. PLEASE READ BEFORE DOWNLOADING Song Sleuth Auto-ID gets you started with suggested matches, but it is not perfect. Ultimately, it’s up to you to make the final identification. The app is intended to be an interactive and fun way to learn birding by ear. The more engaged you are in the process, the more we hope you will learn. Please read the following information on the app’s capabilities and limitations: -The app does not identify simple calls, chips and scolds, only bird songs and more distinct calls that are characteristic of that species. -The app does not recognize birds that are mimicking other birds such as the Thrashers and Mockingbird. -It is ideal to get a recording of a single bird singing. The app can be confused by noise or background birds but tools are provided to trim and filter your recordings to improve the results. - The app performs best outdoors with live birds, and not as well with pre-recorded sounds. Also, Song Sleuth automatically selects the birds that are likely to be in your area at the present time of year, so you need to be sure the birds you are playing are selected in the SPECIES LIST. SONG SLEUTH HELPS YOU IDENTIFY SINGING BIRDS Simply press the record button when you hear a bird singing and the app begins recording a few seconds back in time using the built-in microphone. Tap the record button again when the song is complete and Song Sleuth immediately shows you three most likely species. To assist you in determining the correct bird, you can listen to your recording and the example recordings of the likely matches as well as compare their spectrograms side-by-side. SAVE, VIEW, LISTEN TO AND SHARE RECORDINGS Recordings are saved in the RECORDING LIST where you can view the recording’s spectrogram, listen to the recording (and speed it up or slow down), add a text note, or view the GPS location. You can also trim the recording or filter the frequency range to remove extraneous sounds. Recordings can be shared with other Song Sleuth users via text messaging or email. INCLUDES DAVID SIBLEY BIRD REFERENCE INFORMATION The included David Sibley Bird Reference lets you learn more about each species. The reference includes Sibley illustrations of each bird, a description of each bird and its songs, zoomable range maps and a bar chart showing the likelihood of each bird’s presence in your area throughout the year, using Sibley’s extensive database of bird presence. COMPLETE COLLECTION OF EXAMPLE RECORDINGS Well-known nature recordist Lang Elliot and friends spent countless hours recording in the field to provide over 1,000 world-class recording examples of the included bird species. You can listen to a all the vocalizations made by each species or compare spectrograms to your own recordings or examples from other species. SEE YOUR RECORDING LOCATIONS Recording locations can be viewed on a satellite or road map or transferred to a computer and viewed in Google Earth. (Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.)