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Links to other Birdsong and Birding Sites.

SITES WITH BIRDSONGS

(map; these sites also appear in the list below)
(red square)Click on the site to access local birdsongs. Map ©1998 The Living Earth, Inc. Links on map need updating.

GENERAL
The MACAULEY LIBRARY OF NATURAL SOUNDS website offers 115,354 audio clips and 37,547 videos of birds. Thank you Cornell!
David Attenborough's The Life of Birds on the PBS website has an introduction to birdsong with seven nice samples (in Real Player format) from around the world: Kakapo, Australian Musk Duck, British "dawn chorus," Wedge-tailed Shearwater, American Streamertail, Calfbird and Superb Lyrebird. No scientific names, no locations. His lyrebird segment is available in video on YouTube. Worth a look! Also on here.
The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology has an Animal Diversity website with Aves, a section containing much detailed information about many species of birds.
WorldTwitch has a Bird Sounds page with many useful links, especially to exotic places and species.
Mangoverde.com plans to be "a digital field guide to all of the bird species in the world." Currently "9917 bird species - 2990 sounds covering 1556 species - 21902 photos covering 5583 species - 494 videos covering 247 species."
JungleWalk has a nicely organized collection of links to bird sounds on the web.
Pulse of the Planet is a series of 2-minute radio segments produced by the National Geographic magazine. Many of the segments involve birds and play appropriate bird sounds. But the search engine for the audio archive is hard to use. Here are some: "Return of the Wood Thrush" (search under wood thrush); "Bird Song: Music" (music); "Bird Song: Dialects" (dialects); "Bird Song: Learn" (learn).
The National Geographic's website has a lively bird page. Best way to find records is to use the sitemap. Many records of North American birds on their Backyard Birding page.
Martyn Stewart's site Naturesound.Org runs a stream of samples from his collection. Longer records are available from him for a nominal fee.
The British Library has a Listen to nature website with 400 audio extracts including many interesting bird sounds. Check out Nightingale (a 1910 recording, "the first published recording of a bird") under "Wrens, Chats and Thrushes," where you will also find a very nice Musician Wren. On the site is Jeffrey Boswall's Language of Birds, "an introduction to how, why, and when birds communicate."
Doug Quinn's outfit dqmedia specializes in sound design for public spaces. Several of Doug's "audio postcards" have been featured on NPR, and two of these are centered around birdsong: Oropendola and Ulva Island, New Zealand.
Bob Planqué and Willem-Pier Vellinga have organized Xeno Canto, "the community database of shared bird sounds from the whole world," especially strong on South and Central America. Currently 67113 recordings of 7260 species. Searchable. Outstanding!
NORTH AMERICA
About.com's Birding/Wild Birds page lists many of these and many other links.
The Patuxent-Bird Songs page is maintained by the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (United States Geological Survey). They have a separate Song List and Call List, as well as a Bird Quiz with a section on song.
The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has an online Bird Guide with images, information, video clips and sounds.
Lang Elliott's new site: The Music of Nature has outstanding recordings. Search for thrush, vireo, ... and be amazed. Needs index. Still available on the old site is a gallery of 12 exceptionally fine photographs and sound records of North American songbirds.
Tom Lorenzin's BirdSong Mnemonics with links to other birder pages.
Greg Kunkel's birdsongs, WAV files with beautiful sonagrams.
Doug Von Gausig's Bird Sounds a very pretty page with over 165 records (of over 140 species), mostly or all from Arizona. These are .wav files, 80-200 kB. "All the sounds on the pages were recorded by myself using a Sony MZ-R30 digital MiniDisc recorder, and all recordings were sight verified."
Audubon's Multimedia Birds of America has a replica of the complete John James Audubon's Birds of America (1840-1844), which includes the full text, color plates, figures and bird calls for many of the illustrated species.
Birding by Ear by Dick Walton offers "a crash course in birdsong identification." (Uses RealPlayer 3.0)
Jeff Groth's Crossbills Audiovisual Guide at the American Museum of Natural History has crossbill calls and links to other natural history museums.
Bird Song Files maintained by Steven Hopp. Mainly Vireos (3 species) at present but they are very nice.
The Florida Museum of Natural History has Florida Bird Songs: over 90 species, short and long .wav records.
Waterfowl Identification on the Ducks Unlimited website has "audio files for some of the most common ducks and geese in North America."
The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota has sound samples for many raptors. Go to the page for the raptor you want to hear.
Compare a synthesized Western Meadowlark to the real thing on Peter Assman's Trackdraw page.
The Arizona Bird Field Data Resources page has "images, sound recordings, and explanatory text about Arizona birds." Current experimental sound format is Windows Media Player. Lots of great photos.
Neville Recording puts out CDs of Canadian bird songs. This site has three nice, long samples (Common Loon, Golden crowned Sparrow, Northern Water Thrush).
Bird Watcher's Digest.com has a bird identification page with some 85 nice records.
The Canadian Wildlife Service has some information on Bicknell's Thrush but links to songs have disappeared.
Kirtland's Warbler has its own page sponsored by the United States Forest Service.
Birds on Assateague has sounds of Laughing Gull, Sanderling, Bob-white and Common Tern.
University of the Fraser Valley has The Sounds of a Walk in the Forest: Black-capped Chickadee, Pileated Woodpecker, Pacific-slope Flycatcher, Steller's Jay, Winter Wren .
Wind Cave National Park (South Dakota) has a Bird List with 73 sound records including Sharp-tailed Grouse, Dickicissel, Grasshopper Sparrow.
Vivanatura has Bird Sounds: 55 sound records of Mexican birds arranged alphabetically on 3 pages.
Mexican Bird Songs recorded by John R. Sauer. Melodious blackbird and 15 others; also White-bellied wren on its own page.
Natural History Education, Science, Technology has a sound-based Brief Guide to Common Birds, designed for the vision-impaired. The site presents 28 records of common birds and a quiz.
The Macauley Library of Natural Sounds has posted a rich collection of bird videos on its YouTube Channel. About 10 feature "Voices" but all are fascinating.
Owling.com has a site for North American Owls. All 25 nesting species photographed and recorded.
The Species Audio Library of the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas features high-quality MP3 recordings (made by John Feith) of some 200 Wisconsin species.
BirdJam offers a large number of high-quality recordings, some from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, some from Lang Elliott.
Nature Sounds.ca is a website "dedicated to sharing the sounds and experiences of the woods and forests of northeastern North America." Several high-quality free downloads are available, samples of CDs for sale.
MaineBirding.net offers a collection of Atlantic puffin videos. Hear them here.
Dave Gammon's NatureSounds offers 879 mp3 audio files from 220 species (mostly birds). "... you can search by common name, by taxonomic family, and by location. All sounds are available as free downloads."
The Smithsonian Institution has posted a key (based on the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center recordings) identifying North American songbirds by their songs. Check it out!
CENTRAL and SOUTH AMERICA
Brazilian Bird Songs a site with 51 .au and .wav files. Yes! Includes the Organ Wren, the fabled Uirapuru. Listening to this song brings good luck for life. (Legend antedates Web).
Some Bird Sounds from Bolivia contains eight "very short cuts taken from Sjoerd Mayer's CD-ROM Birds of Bolivia."
The Sights and Sounds of Costa Rica has a dozen or so nice records by Doug van Gausig.
Bird Songs of the Yucatan Peninsula by Daniel Mennill is a beautifully designed page with 16 excellent records accompanied by sonograms and analyses. Don't miss Spot-breasted Wren, Great-tailed Grackle and Montezuma Oropendola.
Dan Mennill also has Bird Songs of Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica; 25 records with pictures and sonograms. Check out the Rufous-and-white wrens, especially the duets.
Voces de Aves Chilenas has some 60 recordings of Chilean birds, due to Guillermo Egli. Listed alphabetically by local name (Scientific name is given).
Bird sounds from Suriname has some 40 WAV records including Screaming Piha and White Bellbird, plus 7 nice video clips. Also available in Dutch.
John van der Woude has posted sound files from his birding trips to South America (MP3) format:
Owling.com has a site for Central American Owls. 25 species photographed and recorded, with more to come.
The Amazon Birdwatchers' Website has 29 nice recordings (Red-billed Toucan, Uirapuru, Screaming Piha, etc.) by Reynier Omena Jr., with photos by Robson Esteves Czaban.
Biblioteca de Sonidos Aves de México lets you listen to a large number of Mexican birds. Text in Spanish but birds are organized by family with Scientific, Spanish and English names. Don't miss the Oropendola (Passeriformes, Emberizidae, Icterinae).
EUROPE
The Virtual Bird, Bird Songs [of Finland] 43 excellent records, including Thrush Nightingale. "The bird song files are 51kb to 359kB. We have changed the format to high quality mp3 files."
Club voor Natuurgeluiden Registratie (Dutch bioacoustical association) Opnamen page has a large collection of MP3 files of bird songs.
Alberto Masi's Suoni & Canti degli Uccelli d'Europa has 413 excellent recordings of European birds. Nightingale and many many more. Searchable. Indexed by scientific name. Sonograms are not currently available.
The BBC's Dawn Chorus page has sounds and advice about recording.
The Bird species list of Walton Hall Nature Trail (Open University) has 16 song records.
The Dutch Birding Association (go to Sound Gallery) has a huge collection of bird song recordings. Ten different ones for the Thrush Nightingale alone.
Réveil des Oiseaux has the songs of all the birds featured in Messiaen's composition, and additional information about bird songs in classical music. In French.
Northamptonshire Wildlife has a Sound Gallery with over 85 records including Little Grebe and Reed Warbler.
The Knutsford Ornithological Society website has 36 sound records in WAV and RA format. Their Cuckoo recording has a typical rural background - very nice.
AvisoftSASLab ("The comprehensive Sound Analysis and Synthesis Laboratory Software for Windows-PC's") has an Animal Sound Recordings page with 108 bird samples, mostly recorded in Germany. Also Bats, Dogs, Insects and Frogs. Check out Skylark and Marsh Frog (the aptly named Rana ridibunda).
Wildsong is a British commercial outfit with a Listening Room featuring very high-quality recordings of 18 species (some linked to sonograms and slowed-down versions) and other nature sounds. Check out Marsh Warbler, uncannily like NA Mockingbird.
El Canto de las Aves is a Spanish site with 10 RM records; Nightingale, (European) Robin, etc.
Norwegian Cyberbirding (charming site, worth a visit) has a Fuglelyder (Birdsong) page with over 300 records of European birds. These are the records which were on Masi's site. The good news: they have been compressed into MP3 format. The bad news: they are arranged alphabetically by their names in Norwegian. But the scientific name is also listed: your browser can find it.
Oiseaux.net is an elaborate site with one page for each of the birds of France. Many different photos of each species, plus sounds. In French, but the alphabetical master list is available in English or in Latin (by scientific name). Merci Didier.
Chants d'Oiseaux en Bourgogne, maintained by Gérard Olivier, is a site with records of about 90 species of birds of the Burgundy region. Nice, long MP3 recordings. En français with scientific names.
BIRD SONGS AND SPECTROGRAMS OF SOUTHERN TUSCANY has 105 species pages, each with calls and sonograms. Page in English, indexed in English, Italian and with scientific names.
Natures Sounds features recordings made "out in the countryside near to Canonbie in Dumfriesshire," in Scotland. Most are for sale, but the site has a running demo of 4-minute "snippets." Summary identifications, but very atmospheric.
The Freesound Project has a nice 2.5-minute recording of a Nightingale. Another 4:21 of Nightingale, with photos, on Metacafe.
Birds of Switzerland has photos, short song/call records and data on 201 species, from Alpine Accentor to Yellowhammer. "Start Search" with no input to bring up complete list. Deutsch/Français/English.
Birdsounds birdsongs europe ... has 280 species with images; often several records per bird.
AFRICA
Xeno-canto's Africa collection has 5004 records of 1228 species! Check out the Robin-Chats: White-browed, Snowy-crowned.
Teus Luijendijk has posted Sickle-biled Vanga and Rufous Vanga on his Bird recordings page, along with an Indri, all from Madagascar.
An Oriental Sky Lark, recorded in Israel, also among Teus Luijendijk's Bird recordings.
South African Birding has a large number of useful links to CDs, bird guides and birding destinations.
The Tanzania Bird Atlas has a Bird Sounds page with some 90 records of local birds, some with sonograms. Check out   D'Arnaud's Barbet,   Grey-capped Warbler (duet song),   Tropical Boubou (duet song).
ASIA
H.Hiraizumi's Birding Page has many links to birdsong records. Text is in encoded japanese.
The Hong Kong Bird-Watching Society's Bird Call page has 60 species, many with several records (.wav files). "The aim of this page is to encourage more members to get started recording bird songs."
Teus Luijendijk has posted 3 birdsongs from Viet Nam (Grey-crowned Crocias, Grey-billed Tesia, Large Scimitar-babbler) on his Bird recordings page.
Birds of the southern taiga of western Siberia - song and habitat around Tomsk has some 60 recordings by Sergey Gashkov
Listening Earth has posted samples from their CD "The Sacred Forests of India - Nagarhole National Park," including calls of the Coucal Centropus sinensis.
John van der Woude went to West Malaysia (20 records) in March 2002 and to Thailand (43 records) in April 2003.
Khong Tuck Khoon's Malaysian Bird Calls page has some 60 species with many records. Some very exotic sounds. Check out Drongo and Iora.
Indiabirds is an elegant website with photos of some 300 Indian birds and recordings of about 120 of them. Check out the Common Hawk Cuckoo (also known as "the brain fever bird") and the beautiful Malabar Whistling Thrush.
Jelle Scharringa has a CD of "Birds of Tropical Asia" Five short samples (Large Hawk-Cuckoo, Bay Owl, Scaly-crowned Babbler, Mountain Tailorbird, Scaly-breasted Wren-Babbler) are available here.
AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND and INDONESIA
Birds Australia has a page with six nice recordings by Tony Howard. Check out the Kookaburra!

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree

Merry, merry king of the bush is he!

Laugh, kookaburra laugh, kookaburra 

Gay your life must be!
From Mathew B's project at the Wangaratta Primary School in North East Victoria, Australia.
Eight recordings by David Smithdale of birds living near Perth.
Kiwi Wildlife Tours NZ Gallery features photos, and sound portraits of 33 New Zealand birds. Check out the North Island Kokako, a wattlebird with "the most beautiful and haunting call of all of New Zealand's birds."
Listening Earth is a rich and attractive site with all kinds of information about Australian wildlife. Has lovely samples (but short on identification).
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation maintains a huge Australian Bird Songs site with some 125 records.
Birding Sulawesi and Halmahera has 8 records (Piping Crow, Malia, Wallace's Standardwing, Ivory-breasted Pitta, Moluccan Owlet-Nightjar, Sulawesi Nightjar, Sulawesi Drongo, Great Shortwing) in Quicktime format.
Listening Earth offers some samples (no identifications) from Sulawesi and Thailand
The MacPherson Natural History Unit Sound Archive has 12 CDs of New Zealand Birds for sale, plus 3 more of Polynesia and Melanesia. There are two samples available from each CD. Check out the Stewart Island Kiwi.
Dan Mennill's Bird Songs of the Atherton Tablelands (Queensland, Australia) is a beautiful site with pages for 14 birds, each with sonogram, photograph and long and short sound records in MP3 format. Check out the Mountain Thornbill and the Eastern Whipbird.
New Zealand Birds is a commercial site with lots of information, including a sight-and-sound gallery of 10 stars: Kaka, Kakapo, Kiwi, Kokako, Korimako, Pipiwharauroa, Piwakawaka, Ruru, Tieke, Tui.
Nature Sounds of New Zealand has samples from their CD. A lovely several-minute continuous recording including thunder and a downpour, plus short records of Tui, Bellbird and Saddleback.
Birds in Backyards offer their Top 40 bird songs: "the most curious or distinctive bird calls in urban areas (mostly around Sydney), based on common enquiries to the Australian Museum." Interesting classification of birds by song type: Cacklers, Carollers, Clocks, Cooers, Criers, Hooters, Peepers, Screechers, Sorrows, Squeakers, Trillers, Waverers, Whistlers.

OTHER SITES

Guide to Animal Sounds on the Net has a very complete set of links, indexed by bird families.
Electronic Resources on Ornithology has a large collection of useful links.
birding.com has "over 2500 links." "Featured bird" is featured with its song. Includes "Top 25 Birding Websites."
Birding by Ear is a series of CD's that "combine effective educational narrative with high quality birdsong recordings."
American Birding Association home page has many useful links.
Chipper Woods Bird Observatory page has many excellent photos of birds they have banded.
Wild Birds Unlimited is "the first and largest franchise system of retail stores catering to the backyard birdfeeding hobbyist." Check out their FeederCam.
Human whistling as a sound of nature? Check out Robert Stemmons "The Bird Man" and his whistling web site.
Our Feathered Friends -Backyard Birding.
Birders Webring.
Klassiker der Biologie im Internet has a complete online collection of splendid images of plates from Naumann's Naturgeschichte der Vögel Mitteleuropas. Indexed by scientific name.
A Última Arca de Noé (The Last Noah's Ark) is a Brazilian site about ecology and the environment, with a page on bird vocalizations. They also have a huge list of bird sites.
WildBirds.com"the place to come for answers about wild birds in your yard and around the corner!"
The bigger the brain, the sweeter the bird song Environmental News Network item dated November 20 2000.
ERIC - the Educational Resources Information Center, the federally funded web information site, has a database of useful references (search on "bird song").
Fågelstudier is a Swedish site with ornithological information and an interesting attitude.
Bavarian Birds and others ... has a bird identification quiz and BabelBirdy a German-English-Scientific-French-Spanish bird name dictionary.
Environment Canana & The Canadian Wildlife Federation run the "Hinterland Who's Who" (Flore et Faune du Pays) website with over 50 Bird Fact Sheets, some with sound clips.
The Pukaha Mt. Bruce (New Zealand) National Wildlife Center has a page for Icon Birds and one for Forest Birds.
New Zealand Wildlife Tours have a page on the Royal Albatross colony at Taiaroa Head with pictures and information about the species.
Die Vogelstimmen Europas, Nordafrikas und Vorderasiens (Birdsounds of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; English text available) sells a set of "17 Audio-CDs with 2817 recordings of 819 species." Site has complete list of recorded species.
South African Birding has a nice collection of CDs for sale.
EPIC Environmental Protection in the Caribbean has a webpage with photos and checklists of birds, mainly from the Lesser Antilles.
The BirdJam, an iPod pre-loaded with songs from the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs, Eastern Region, "organized to enable quick identification of bird songs in the field." You can also buy software and recordings to convert your own iPod.
Birding Binoculars Guide is "a noncommercial site [which] focuses exclusively on optics for birders (including a buying guide, extensive FAQ, binoculars reviews, a large glossary, and more)."
BirdSounds.nl and other sounds of nature "is an online shop for bird and nature sounds. There are recordings of more than 8000 bird species ... ."
Kiwi Conservation Club written for children but has nicely presented information about New Zealand birds.
Hauraki Gulf New Zaland Pelagic Tours has a Birdwatching Gallery with pictures and descriptions of New Zealand Seabirds.
ALOSA, Sonidos de la naturaleza organize bird-listening trips from Barcelona; their Sonoteca sells sound clips of nature sounds from Spain, Portugal, the Balearics and the Canarys. Several hundred species available.
Bird Studies Canada maintains a huge list of Bird Links to the World. Currently around 27 thousand items.
Natural Born Birder (Extreme birding Norway) offers "seawatching and birding in Øygarden, Norway, offshore birding, trip reports, gallery and more."
Dean Birders. "Birdwatching information, gallery, and reports from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire maintained by and for disabled and housebound birdwatchers."
Best of the Web - Birding is a site with many links to pages of interest to birders. Some, but not many, links to information about sounds.
Foto Search has over 41,000 bird images, many of them free, some with scientific names.
Hummingbird Gardens -- Herbs and Flowers for Hummingbirds, maintained by the Monterey Bay Spice Company, has additional links to a wide variety of information about hummingbirds.
USA People Search has a Birding in the US and Abroad page with many useful links.
The Wild Bird Resource Guide has a useful collection of links for birders worldwide,
Birdfeeders.com has a community-based hummingbird migration tracker
Design 55 Online is a British commercial site with Beyond Bird Feeders: A Complete Guide to Bird Watching, a collection of many useful links, including a section on "Bird Watching Pages and Activities for Kids".
Sofasandsectionals.com is another commercial site with its own Bird Watching Guide; minimal overlap with the previous link; also has a section on "Bird Watching Resources for Kids."
If you have or know of a site, please relay the information to tony at math.sunysb.edu

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Tony Phillips
Math Dept SUNY Stony Brook
email: tony at math.sunysb.edu
All links checked, updated August 2 2011
Map needs updating badly. March 21, 2013