Bird Sound Samples
The following samples of bird sounds are intended to illustrate the tremendous variety of bird vocalizations as part of my dissertation “Identifying Birds by Sound: Large-scale Acoustic Event Classification for Avian Activity Monitoring”.
The sample IDs listed below correspond with samples marked in the text of my thesis.
1 – American Goldfinch Song
According to Sibley Birds East, the song in this sample can best be transcribed as toWEE toWEE toWEE toWEE toWEE toWEE ti ti ti ti ti. Transcriptions of bird songs in general remain ambiguous and often non-intuitive.
Recordist: Paul Marvin
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/169082
2 – American Goldfinch Call
According to Sibley Birds East, the calls in this sample can best be transcribed as toweeeowee toweeeowee. We can hear that the actual signal is richer than any of the transcriptions ever can be.
Recordist: Andrew Spencer
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/109300
3 – Common Yellowthroat Song
The Common Yellowthroat has a quite complex song with a series of distinct notes.
Recordist: Geoffrey A. Keller
Source: http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/73875
4 – Common Yellowthroat Calls
The Common Yellowthroat has a simple “chup” call given all year in alarm.
Recordist: Peter Paul Kellogg
Source: http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/10157
5 – Black-capped Chickadee Song
The Black-capped Chickadee has a very simple song with only two notes.
Recordist: Ted Floyd
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/350304
6 – Black-capped Chickadee Call
It is believed that the number of “dee”-notes in the Black-capped Chickadee call encodes the threat level posed by stationary predators of different sizes.
Recordist: Richard E. Webster
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/190347
7 – Wood Thrush Song
The Wood Thrush creates one of the most complex sounds a bird can make with its impressive trills at the end of each song.
Recordist: Peter Paul Kellogg
Source: https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/11308
8 – Downy Woodpecker Drumming
Characteristic non-vocal drum patterns of the Downy Woodpecker can be used for identification.
Recordist: Jim Berry
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/313331
9 – Hairy Woodpecker Drumming
The Hairy Woodpecker has a higher drum rate than the Downy Woodpecker.
Recordist: William W. H. Gunn
Source: https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/62779
10 – White Stork
The White Stork probably produces the most widely known sound of bill-clattering.
Recordist: Edmunds Racinskis
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/154555
11 – Anna’s Hummingbird
Males of Anna’s Hummingbird produce a mechanical ‘chirp’ when diving that precedes the normal song.
Recordist: Tayler Brooks
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/42442
12 – American Bittern
The American Bittern is known to produce bizarre sounds inflating the esophagus.
Recordist: Jeff Dyck
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/419704
13 – White-throated Sparrow Plastic Song
Young birds struggle with the precise control of the syrinx and throat muscles.
Recordist: Geoffrey A. Keller
Source: https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/176154
14 – White-throated Sparrow Crystallized Song
After song learning is completed, adult males sing a series of pure tones.
Recordist: Geoffrey A. Keller
Source: https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/73990
15 – Brown Thrasher
The Brown Thrasher seems to be more versatile than any other bird species when it comes to singing.
Recordist: Andrew Spencer
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/104666
16 – Northern Mockingbird
Mockingbirds often tend to vocalize in a long sequence of songs, permanently switching from one tonality to another.
Recordist: Richard E. Webster
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/321914
17 – Superb Lyrebird
Of all mimics, the Superb Lyrebird seems to be the most elaborate, with an uncanny ability to incorporate not just natural, but also technical sounds into its song. Especially individuals in captivity tend to mimic car alarms, human speech, camera shutters or even toy sounds.
Recordist: Saeed Lajami
Source: https://youtu.be/RSZtoXIb7do
18 – White-crowned Sparrow 1
In the field, males of the White-crowned Sparrow usually restrict themselves to a single song type. The following four examples demonstrate individual geographic variations in song types across four sparrows. The first sample was recorded in Mary’s Peak, Benton Co., Oregon, USA.
Recordist: Andrew Spencer
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/143211
19 – White-crowned Sparrow 2
The second sample was recorded in Unorganized Yukon, Yukon, Canada.
Recordist: Logan McLeod
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/432599
20 – White-crowned Sparrow 3
The third sparrow was recorded in Waterton Township, Waterton Lakes NP, Alberta, Canada.
Recordist: Chris Parrish
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/21724
21 – White-crowned Sparrow 4
Finally, the fourth individual was recorded in Pacific Creek, Grand Teton NP, Wyoming, USA.
Recordist: Chris Parrish
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/22039
22 – Dawn Chorus
The high levels of song production and the significant number of overlapping vocalizations in frequency and time during the dawn chorus pose a hard challenge for any bird sound recognition system.
Recordist: Michael Andersen
Source: https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/136467
23 – Spring Peeper Chorus
A Spring Peeper chorus is very common for some regions in North America and significantly disturbs soundscape recordings.
Recordist: Michael Andersen
Source: https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/136511
24 – Red-winged Blackbird
Introductory notes of the Red-winged Blackbird song are consistently more important for species identification than the characteristic trill that appears to provide enough redundancy to compensate information loss.
Recordist: Martin St-Michel
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/137984
25 – Wood Thrush
This species is one of the most prominent examples for two-voiced sounds with its characteristic trills at the end of each song. Despite this re-occurring pattern, introductory notes consistently lead to higher class activation.
Recordist: Martin St-Michel
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/179642
26 – Tufted Titmouse
The gap between two consecutive tones appears to be the discriminating feature for species identification. The introductory note alone does not suffice to distinguish the Tufted Titmouse from other species like the Black-capped Chickadee.
Recordist: Brian Murphy
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/363521
27 – Black-capped Chickadee
Although the species-specific vocalizations are similar to some variations of the Tufted Titmouse song, class activations show a distinct focus on the first note while the gap between notes does not appear to be important for species identification.
Recordist: Ted Floyd
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/350304
28 – White-crowned Sparrow
Although an individual in the field only utters a single song, permutations of song elements lead to a vast number of regional dialects. Re-occurring elements are key to identify this species. Other elements appear to contain redundant or insufficient information for identification.
Recordist: Peter Boesman
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/322831
29 – Common Chaffinch
Again, re-occurring elements are key for identification. Despite distinct regional dialects between populations of this species, common patterns in song lead to high class activation independent of their location in the song sequence.
Recordist: Audevard Aurélien
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/483106
30 – Blue Jay
The nasal ‘jeer’ of this species is characteristic and commonly heard. Only a single frequency band appears to encode species identity and thus leads to significant drops in confidence when occluded.
Recordist: David Darrell-Lambert
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/476525
31 – Common Buzzard
The nasal upslur at the beginning of each vocalization appears to be the most discriminating feature. Other parts of the utterance contain redundant information that does not lead to increased class activation.
Recordist: Dmitry Yakubovich
Source: https://www.xeno-canto.org/234607
32 – AMTiC soundscape noise
During the AMTiC project, the Eurasian Eagle-Owl and Tawny Owl were detected due to the noise of distant vehicles that emitted sounds similar to those of Owls with their tires
Recordist: Stefan Kahl