Bird song app

[dspp]

Can anyone give a particular recommendation for a free android UK birdsong recognition app?

Regards, dspp

[scotia]

Not really an answer to your query - but I use an elderly copy of the CD-ROM Guide to British Birds which contains recordings of songs and calls.
However - beware of Starlings which can mimic a whole range of Bird Calls, and other sounds. The Trim Phone Ring used to be a favourite. And Blackbirds are also adept at this ability!

[EssDeeAitch]

Can anyone give a particular recommendation for a free android UK birdsong recognition app?

Regards, dspp

Quick search on Google Play finds many bird song apps, some free, some paid for.

I downloaded UK Birds Sounds and it seems fine with plenty of birds listed.

[jackdaww]

try prokofiev's 5th symphony .

plenty of birdsong ( and steam trains ) in there!.

[dspp]

There are many birdsong apps on the download sites.

Thank you SDH, but when I try UKBirdSounds it seems to be good as a way of looking up a bird, but to not have a birdsong recognition functionality. However it is free.

I also tried BirdUp which advertises itself as being free, but turns out to be just a free one month trial. Anyway it has the recognition function that I was seeking and so I went and tested it yesterday on my evening walk.

The location of interest is in countryside, in a grass meadow with some gorse and a pond on a chalk ridge immediately next to mixed woodland (some of it pine & fir, some of it oak & ash and probably not logged in over 1,000-years). A few weeks ago I watched nine buzzards there (they nest on the wood edge in some tall pines).

(thank you for the warning Scotia, but if the starlings out there are being tricksy, then in this location they are doing it purely to wind up the local wildlife)

BirdUp does recognition against a library, and presents a frequency/time waterfall display remarkably like sonar systems used to be about 30-years ago. It auto-recognises reasonably well and the main limitation appears to be the phone hardware, i.e. the microphone and the amplifier, rather than the recognition software. I can see why the dedicated twitchers use directional mikes. Having said that one can clearly see on the screen some calls (which my ears can hear even more clearly) which are not being recognised by the app. The app picked out Great Tits, Blue Tits, Robins, and Treecreepers (which sound like squeaky wheelbarrow wheels, and which are new to me so that is a good result), but didn't place the thing I was trying to recognise. It also didn't pick up the crows, gulls, blackbirds, and pheasants I could pick out myself. So a mixed outcome.

All the new lambs are wobbling around getting their legs, and the first bluebells are getting their clocks wrong.

regards, dspp

[scotia]

dspp - thanks for the interesting report.
And yes - I saw a bluebell in flower today

[fuiseog]

Bluebells where? Not here in Yorks that I've seen.

[AleisterCrowley]

On the birdsong theme, what are the ones that coo "R" in morse code (wuh-whoooh-wuh)?
Wood pigeons? Doves?

[Breelander]

On the birdsong theme, what are the ones that coo "R" in morse code (wuh-whoooh-wuh)?
Wood pigeons? Doves?

It is said that the wood pigeon sounds like it is saying "I love you, I do...."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XfAh4t3t-M

Your description sounds more like the collared dove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh2whhvFWsM

[swill453]

It is said that the wood pigeon sounds like it is saying "I love you, I do...."

The RSPB guide on our identification walk characterised it as "yes I am, stu-pid".

Scott.

[AleisterCrowley]

The collared dove is the closest, do hear the pigeons too (and red kites whistling...)

[scotia]

Bluebells where? Not here in Yorks that I've seen.

Occasional ones in central Scotland - some blooms just opening in my garden - which my son's dog felt needed watering.

[scotia]

In my youth I was taught that the wood pigeon called "Tak Two Coos Paddy" - always finishing on the Tak.
And the Collared Dove - which is now present in Scotland - appears to truncate this to "Tak Two Coos"

[Slarti]

In my youth I was taught that the wood pigeon called "Tak Two Coos Paddy" - always finishing on the Tak.
And the Collared Dove - which is now present in Scotland - appears to truncate this to "Tak Two Coos"

Also, the Collared Doves have their "lookout below" squawk that they give when coming in to land.

Slarti

[AleisterCrowley]

Collared doves seem to have a 'reedy' in flight call , "zzzhewww zheeewww..."