Wired
When the temperatures rise again, many of us are drawn to nature. On our walks we come across numerous species of birds, of which we can usually only name a few. Similar to the knowledge of the local flora, the knowledge of the local bird species also has room for improvement for most of them. The free BirdNET app from the Chemnitz University of Technology recognizes birds quickly and reliably based on their voices and helps you to find out more about the bird species that live here on your excursions.
Download the BirdNET app
The BirdNET app by the developer Stefan Kahl, who conducts research at the TU Chemnitz, enables birds to be recognized based on their songs with the help of artificial intelligence and neural networks. According to the developer, the program is able to “identify more than 3,000 of the most common bird species worldwide”. The 50.5 MB application can be downloaded completely free of charge from the App Store and does not require any in-app purchases. The only requirement: at least iOS 13 must be installed on your iPhone. So you have to be in possession of an iPhone 6s or newer to use the app.
BirdNET (Free, App Store) →
Recognize birds by their song with BirdNET
The BirdNET app works very easily and doesn’t require a great deal of explanation. After you have installed the application on your iPhone, you must first of all approve the privacy policy and allow access to your microphone and your location in order to guarantee the functionality of the app. Then you can start.
Go to a quiet place where the bird’s voice (s) can be easily heard. In the “Record” tab, the recording starts automatically, even without first clicking the microphone button. When you have recorded a certain bird call – recognizable by the fluctuations in the spectogram – stop the recording with a tap on the pause button and go to the “Selection” tab.
You can now listen to the recording again by tapping the play button. Then limit the part in the spectogram that can be assigned to the bird’s voice and tap on “Analyze”. In the “Result” tab, the bird species with the highest probability then appears below the recording, taking into account your current location.
With a tap of the finger on the result you will finally get to the Wikipedia entry for the respective bird species. If necessary, you can also save your recording and collect it in a list under “Show observations” (menu area top left). Also interesting: Under “Explore your region” (also to be found in the menu at the top left) you will get a list of all bird species that can be found in your region at this time.
Tip: If you not only want to find out more about birds, but also about the plant species native to us, we recommend the Flora Incognita app, which we already presented to you in another post.
Source: iPhone Tricks