Tap a button. Hold up your phone. We name the bird from its song or call. Free, browser-based, no app download, checked by two AI models, Cornell's BirdNET and Google's Perch.
🎙️ Try Bird Hear now Browse the BirdedexTap the green mic button and hold your phone toward the singing bird. We auto-stop after 10 seconds (or hit stop early).
Your clip goes to Cornell's BirdNET on our server, while Google's Perch model runs on your own device. A bird both models pick scores highest.
We show the most likely birds with confidence scores. One tap logs the bird to your life list and adds it to your Birdedex.
If you are asking "what bird is this sound?", this is the quickest route from noise to name.
Recorded the sound earlier? Use Upload audio file on the same page.
Ten songs you are likely to hear from a British garden. Learn these and a result from any bird sound identifier is easier to sanity-check.
More on these species in our garden birds guide. To train your ear, play the daily Bird Call game: you hear a recording and guess the bird.
| Feature | Bird Hear | Other apps |
|---|---|---|
| Free forever | ✓ | Often premium-only |
| No app download | ✓ Browser only | App Store / Play Store |
| UK-focused species list | ✓ Tuned to BOU list | Global, less precise locally |
| One-tap log to life list | ✓ | Separate apps |
| Two open models (BirdNET and Perch) | ✓ Cornell Lab and Google | Closed models |
| No tracking, no data sold | ✓ Audio deleted instantly | Varies |
Yes. Completely free. No sign-up needed for the sound-ID itself. Sign-up only unlocks saving sightings to your life list.
No. Bird Hear is a web page, not an app. Open it in the browser on your phone or computer, tap the microphone and allow access when asked.
Two models check each clip, BirdNET and Perch. In our own test on recordings of 50 common UK species, the right bird was the first answer for 45 of 50 clear clips and in the top three for 48. With background noise added it was first for about 40 of 50. Wind, traffic and several birds singing at once all make it worse, so treat a Low score as a maybe.
Not fully. BirdNET runs on our server, so a short clip is sent for analysis and deleted straight after. The second model, Perch, is downloaded once (68 MB) and then runs on your device.
Your clip is sent to our BirdNET server, which runs on Hugging Face, along with an approximate location and the week of the year. It is analysed and deleted straight away. We do not keep it or link it to your account. Perch runs on your own device, so your audio is not sent anywhere for that part.
Over 600 species: the full BOU British List including breeders, winter visitors and regular vagrants. Rare one-off vagrants (1-2 records in UK history) may not be identified reliably.
No. Bird Hear works for anonymous visitors. An optional free account lets you save identifications to your life list and earn achievements.
Merlin is a free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that you install on your phone. It listens continuously, covers birds worldwide and works offline once you have downloaded a bird pack. Bird Hear runs in a web browser with nothing to install, listens in 10-second clips, checks each clip with two models and sticks to the UK list. One tap adds the bird to your Birdedex life list. Plenty of birders use both.
Yes. It works the same at any hour, and night voices such as Tawny Owl and Nightingale are on the species list. Nights are quieter, which helps. Short flight calls from migrants passing overhead are harder: they are faint and brief, so expect lower scores.
Yes. Press Upload audio file on the Bird Hear page and choose a clip from your phone or computer. The same two models check it.
No download. No sign-up. Just point and listen.
🎙️ Open Bird Hear