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The Blog

Bird Song Recognition With AI

Published by Joseph SARDIN, on

Summary

  • AI-powered apps like Merlin Bird ID and BirdNET now make bird identification accessible to everyone through sound recognition
  • Merlin Bird ID offers real-time, offline identification with multiple recognition methods (sound, photo, physical characteristics)
  • BirdNET requires internet connectivity but covers more species and provides confidence scores for each identification
  • Both apps demonstrate practical AI applications in everyday life, though visual confirmation remains necessary in some cases
  • These tools prove invaluable for amateur birdwatchers while serving as a useful second opinion for experienced ornithologists

Artificial intelligence has become omnipresent in our lives, and it's now being used in consumer applications as mainstream as identifying bird calls and songs.

With this in mind, I decided to test these new applications by downloading two free smartphone apps: "BirdNET" and "Merlin Bird ID."

Merlin Bird ID

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The Merlin Bird ID interface

Clearly, the "Merlin Bird ID" app is my favorite. It's available on the iOS and Android app stores and via https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/. It can recognize birds in real-time and works offline. Recognition can be done by sound (Sound ID) but also by physical or geographic characteristics (Bird ID) and even by analyzing your photos with AI (Photo ID), making it a very comprehensive application.

Practically speaking, and focusing only on sound recognition, you need to go to the "Sound ID" tab and press the microphone icon. A page then stays open, listening to what's happening around you. It then lists, in real-time and progressively, the names of birds being heard. Child's play.

The biggest drawback of this app is that you need to download the bird catalog(s) for your region. This is a problem for those whose smartphones are short on storage space, as the libraries are large.

BirdNET

IMG 8587
The BirdNET interface

A simpler alternative, BirdNET is available on the iOS and Android app stores and via https://birdnet.cornell.edu/. You need to press the microphone icon and then wait for the bird you want to identify to sing. Once done, you'll need to select its song on a spectrogram and then press "Analyze." This portion of sound will be sent to the cloud, meaning online, to be analyzed. The bird's name will then be displayed.

The network isn't essential, as you can "record" your sound clip to "analyze" it when you're back online. But you won't get an immediate answer.

Conclusion

Both of these applications are perfect illustrations of the value of Artificial Intelligence in our lives. They are obviously perfectible, and just like for an expert ornithologist, visual identification is sometimes necessary. Indeed, to cite just one tricky example: some birds are capable of imitating others. So, what's your experience with these AI bird identification apps—have you found them reliable enough to trust in the field, or do you still prefer traditional identification methods?

"Any news, information to share or writing talents? Contact me!"

♥ - Joseph SARDIN - Founder of BigSoundBank.com - About - Contact