Bird Call Identifier: Identify Birds By “Seeing” Their Songs and Calls

So you want to be a better bird call identifier? In this post, you’ll learn how to visualize bird calls and sounds so you can later identify each species in the wild.

More reading: Must Have Bird Watching Gear 

Be a Better Bird Call Identifier: See Their Songs

Before we get started, here’s the concept

Want to play improve your skills? Play Bird Song Hero on AllAboutBirds.org by the Cornell Lab.

Visualize Bird Songs to Identify

Using a spectrogram to display time (left to right) and pitch (from high to low) it’s easy to visualize the sound pattern of any bird. Brightness of the note on the spectrogram shows the volume.

Spectrograms stimulate the visual part of our brain and allow us to commit song patterns to memory. It’s probably not surprising that many birders use them.

More reading: 15 Great Songs About Birds

Visualizing Sounds

Experiments with Google: Bird Sounds Visualized

In researching this post, I came across a fascinating project by Google. Their A.I. Experiment categorized and visualized thousands of bird sounds via machine learning. Check out Bird Sounds.

More reading: Here’s how to choose the best feeder for hummingbirds.

Wavelet Transform

Audubon writes about visualizing birdsong called wavelet transform. Created by software developer Mark Fisher, his program depicts songs produced by cetaceans and birds.

Create Your Own Bird Call Spectrograms

There are a number of apps that will help you create your own bird call spectrograms for identification. Here are a couple to consider:

1. SpectralPro Analyzer (Android): $5.99. According the the app developer, the “Pro version of the spectral audio analyser. Selectable bandwidth up to 24 kHz, flexible amplitude and frequency mapping through touch and scroll, different update speeds and colour mappings. Accurate display of high-pitch or even ultrasonic tones, environmental noise or rumble… . Accurate real-time measurement feature allows detection and analysis of live audio. Spectrograms can be saved as png or jpg files to sd-card.”
2. SpectrumView (iOS): Free, with in-app purchases. “Visualize in real time the frequencies that you can hear around you and even those you cannot. SpectrumView provides a high-quality real-time spectrogram and spectrum analyser display, with a configurable sample rate and frequency resolution, for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. You can use this application to measure the highest tones you can sing, obtain visual feedback of the frequencies in your speech, to identify an annoying sound, for calibrating musical instruments, or generally for all sorts of acoustic analysis. “

You might consider adding an external mic to improve the quality of the audio clips.

More reading: How to choose the best premium binoculars (under $500)

Your Turn

Have you begun to visualize bird calls? Have a tip or question? Join me in the comments!