UKC

This morning I heard a bird that I couldn’t ID. It was singing up in trees and couldn’t see it. (Not in scrub).  If anything, it sounded wren like but much higher pitched, sweeter and quite quiet. I recorded it in my phone. It isn’t any of the main warblers, so could be quite rare. Which apps do folk use?  

Following a recommendation on here - Merlin

It's got better hearing than me

Merlin also!

I use BirdNet.

BirdNet is OK(ish) - not so sure it's good on the rarer stuff though

Not an app but check out https://xeno-canto.org/

Could you upload it somewhere for us to hear?

Was recently introduced to The Cornell Lab Merlin app.  It's superb.

I have both BirdNET and Merlin.

Merlin does the id in real time. I suspect that means that it is processing on your phone. That means that it doesn't need a data connection, and it doesn't need to store or read any files from your phone, if you are worried about that sort of thing (although, obviously, it does need access to your mic).

BirdNET sends the data off to a server at Cornell for processing. That means that it needs to save a file on your phone, and it needs a data connection (although you can send audio off later).

Both apps are owned and run by Cornell University, and both are biased towards N American birds. Both seem ok with relatively common birds over here (although I have had some obvious mis-identifications). I don't know how well they perform with rarer birds.

I have found BirdNET to be a little more sensitive, but Merlin has a nicer interface and is easier to use.

If you want a laugh, point the birdsong app at a squeaky swing! Apparently we had an extremely rare bird in the local park the other week!

could you describe the song further? could it be a blackcap or whitethroat?

Only been using Merlin app for some 3 weeks or so, but it’s been great so far for me. No idea how it would cope with a real rarity though.

If you were to go for it, note you have to download bird packs depending on the geographical area of birds you are interested, so if a rare bird is not in the pack(s) downloaded, I assume it probably won’t ID it. (Largely a guess, but in the photo side of the app it tells you sometimes that bird possibilities are not in pack(s) on phone.) Maybe a long term user of the app on here will know how it handles it.

As mentioned already, Xeno-canto. You can upload recordings and they will be expertly listened to and identified. Also, though huge range of recordings to listen to if you have a good idea of what bird but not sure of it’s different types of calls/songs.

One of my brothers knows his stuff and he said ‘wren with a defect’. Merlin app says wren.  I spend an hour or two every day listening to all manner of small birds and its a rare that I can’t instantly ID. I keep listening and it sounds much higher and sweeter and with a shorter call. But I’ll go with ‘wren with a defect’.  
I will use Merlin app though, looks good.

ETA: just had another listen and the intro notes are almost as high pitched as a goldcrest and quite quiet. At one point a chiffchaff is singing nearby and it totally drowns out the mystery wren.

And I saw another owlet yesterday evening, with its Dad sat in the next tree looking down at me.  

Try birdforum.net and you´ll have it within 30 min (or do you only post climbing stuff on that one? :P )

A wee tip.

Don’t forget to stop the recording part of the app if you are finished with it. Birdnet has a pause but the Merlin app does not.

The app runs in the background (iphone), so if you just lock the screen/etc., the sound part keeping running. It still works identifying birds whilst in a coat/fleece pocket too I discovered which is handy if you need free hands for say taking a photo! I’ve occasionally though tapped the stop button, but fat fingers must have missed it and discovered 10 & even 30 mins later it is still recording!

It is fairly heavy on battery when in recording mode btw though there is a setting option to auto stop it at (I think) 10 mins or something like that I get in a warning message.

If the recording is left on, you also run the risk of it identifying several birds that you have failed to see or even realise were there 😁 which I can imagine would be a tad frustrating and annoying.

I get that anyway from other helpful birdwatchers telling me what is about that I hadn’t seen so nothing new for me 🤣! Especially without a scope and some say there is an “x” over there, etc. and I can’t see it just with my bins.

Actually, I find the RSPB sightings board at Vane Farm more frustrating listing all those birds I probably will not find anyway given the size of the reserve 🙄. Garden Warbler was one the other day; at least I (well Merlin app first) heard it, but could I find it, no. The sightings board said there were four of them too!

Do we get to hear it then, or are you keeping this one for yourself?

I´ve often been enthralled by the subtle differences in Wren song from various areas.

How about a small box with an inbuilt microphone.  You put it in your garden and it creates it's own webpage, listing all the birds it hears with time and date.

Not sure how to share it. 

Interesting idea. Plenty folk would buy one. Be great for schools too. 

Was sat watching goldfinches in our garden this evening. One would fly into one of the fish crates I have, full of weeds and forgetmenots. It would pull at a short strand of stalk whilst it’s mate watched on from the whirligig. Both would fly off, most likely to their nest. Went on for ages. Then my wife shouts ‘what was that!? A bird appeared out of nowhere, really fast and grey/blue plumage and lighter underneath and whizzed over the fence.’  The two goldfinches completely froze for a good ten minutes, not flinching a feather. Then then flew off in completely the opposite direction to their nest, probably to not give away their nest site to mr beady eye. Never seen this before. One could have easily have become Sparrowhawk food. 

The freezing of birds and animals in the presence of predators is amazing, gives you an idea of the terror they must be experiencing. A friend and I were stalking a Goshawk in the big local wooded cemetery; we approached the tree it was in very carefully, but it of course saw us first and flew off. In the lowest fork of the treetrunk, about 2m below where the hawk had been perching, was a red squirrel, moulded into the "Y" and completely motionless; we thought at first that it was already dead and had been stored there by the hawk. We walked right up to the base of the tree, but the squirrel (which was about 5m up) stayed frozen. We talked to it, threw a couple of walnuts (which usually brings them scurrying), even clapped our hands, but it stayed absolutely motionless for a full 10 min.

They´re clever little buggers; the angle of the "Y" was so acute, that the hawk couldn´t have approached it with outstretched wings in flight. The squirrel knew that, and wasn´t moving an inch for anyone until it was absolutely sure that it wasn´t going to end up as a meal.

PS I got the Goshawk a couple of days later, perched on a freshly killed pigeon and so preoccupied that I could crawl through the wild garlic to within a few metres of it

https://freeimage.host/i/HU4itg2

Fantastic. Only seen a couple of goshawks, way in the distance. One of my brothers ‘watched’ them as his job in the Peak District. He did the same in Bowland for hen harriers and Merlin. Bet he never got a view as good as you did. Off to see a barn owl now - hopefully.  

lots of birdsong has been uploaded here: https://soundcloud.com