How to do it
- Start a twelve-second Quick Listen. Quick Listen is unlimited and free. Use a short, clear passage rather than a long recording of mostly background.
- Check how strong the match is. A name alone tells you nothing about confidence. BirdHere shows an audio score and whether the bird is expected near you this week. World Pass adds the full ranked list of what else it considered.
- Look at the recording quality. Wind on the microphone, traffic and nearby speech all degrade the evidence. The app reports this instead of quietly guessing through it.
- Write your own conclusion. Confirm or reject the suggestion. The journal records what you decided, so your notes stay trustworthy over time.
What separates a useful identifier from a confident one
- An identifier that always names something is easy to trust too much: a plausible wrong answer is worse than no answer.
- BirdHere will state plainly that it cannot say, and show you why.
- Human speech in the recording is recognised and logged as human speech rather than being forced into a species.
- The journal is a field notebook rather than a feed: confirmed species, rejected identifications and soundscape notes. With World Pass, Live Listen adds a timeline when several birds sing in turn.
Honest limits
BirdHere reports what it cannot tell you rather than filling the gap with a confident guess.
- BirdHere can be wrong and is not a substitute for expert confirmation.
- Recognition depends on the installed regional pack.
- Species photographs are opt-in, restricted to CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA images, always shown with attribution, and some species have no eligible image.
- Continuous Live Listen, audio and video import, the full candidate list, saved audio and CSV export require World Pass.
Questions
How long does BirdHere need to listen?
Quick Listen uses a twelve-second passage and is unlimited on the free tier. Continuous Live Listen, for dawn chorus work, is part of World Pass.
Can I import a recording I already made?
Audio and video import is included in World Pass.
Does it work in my language?
The interface and standardised bird names are available in 13 languages: English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian.
What does World Pass cost?
BirdHere is free to download. World Pass is an optional in-app purchase, and the App Store shows its price in your local currency before you buy.