How to identify an animal by sound

Often an animal will be heard, long before it is seen and sometimes may not be seen at all. This applies to birds, insects and a range of other animals, at least the ones that can be heard within the range of the human ear. So what are the best ways to identify an animal by sound alone.

Many organisation have been capturing sounds (and photos) and make these available for general access. Macaulay Library is provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (USA) and has the largest repository of animal sounds from around the world. There are others – some Australian examples below – and most of them allow for searching by animal type and location. However, this can be a time consuming activity.

Most libraries are organised by taxa and species (e.g. Birds – Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus violaceus). This requires more information than simply the audio which is useful if you have seen the animal, have some idea of the species or other descriptive information. Then you need to check the available audio files and compare them with what you’ve heard. Not the most friendly approach. Some samples of Australian libraries are:

General Australian libraries

• iNaturalist
• WildAmbience

Type specific libraries

• Frogs – FrogID by Australian Museum
• Frogs (Western Australia only) – Frog Calls by Western Australian Museum
• Birds – Top 40 Bird Songs by Birds in Backyards
• Insects – Guide to Insects that Sing by Owlcation
  

Smart Phone Apps
Technology has advanced significantly to provide smarter ways to identify animal audio, all from the comfort of a smartphone. There are two cool things about apps. One is the ability to upload your audio for a specialist to identify the sound for you (also available in some desktop sites). The other is to have the sound identified using Artificial Intelligence (like Shazam) to match your uploaded audio with a species on file.

The following sample of apps may be free or provided on some form of subscription/fee basis. They can be found in your App Store but may not all be available for both iPhone and Android smart phones. You may also need to look for any limitations like geographic area. For example, some may be limited to countries or states (e.g. states of Australia) that only contain animals found in those areas.

• Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
• Australian National Field Guides by Museum of Victoria
• Smart Bird ID (Australia & NZ)  by Yellow Cardinal Inc
• Bird Song Id Australia – Automatic Recognition by Mullen Pohland GbR