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twitching aid for beginners

 help in identifying tweetie pie
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tweetie pie notoriously hides behind a tree and sings his song to me. I cannot see him and spend the day wondering what sort of bird he is. My knowledge of our feathered friends is not very great but I do like them enormously and would quite like to know who is eating the remains of my lunch.

I am looking for a powerful handheld listening device that you point in the general direction of birdsong and it matches the sound pattern to its extensive data base and sends a general report to the LCD, the name of the bird and a few interesting details about the species. It could possibly incorporate a camera to capture any sighting.

—po, Jan 19 2002

not as barmy as one might think http://www.zestforbirds.co.za/twitch.html
birdwatching in UK [po, Jan 21 2002, last modified Oct 06 2004]

(?) Anabat Bat Detector http://www.titley.com.au/tanabat.htm
Here it is for identifying bats. Could probably modify it to work with bird calls. [davem, Mar 22 2002, last modified Oct 06 2004]

Song Sleuth http://www.wildlife...ics.com/songsleuth/
[bnip, Sep 08 2007]

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       thumb, you have made me cry, you horrible man.
—po, Jan 19 2002
   

       I suspected you needed a good cry, and was merely trying to help in my own <twitch>horribly manly</twitch> way.
I Am Sorry.
—thumbwax, Jan 19 2002
   

       Helium wraps a horse twitch tightly around thumbwax's upper lip and brands him with an "H" halfbakery brand.   

       Watch him squeal po :-D   

       What if several birds are singing at once?   

       And can it distinguish between a bird and thumbwax's squealing?
—Helium, Jan 19 2002
   

       <squeal></squeal>
—thumbwax, Jan 19 2002
   

       Collins Concise Dictionary   

       Twitcher: a bird watcher who tries to spot as many rare varieties as possible
—Helium, Jan 21 2002
   

       I thought this was going to be an idea for some sort of electrical / mechanical thingumajig that would stimulate facial tics for wannabe weirdos. Ah, well. I still quite like it.
—Guy Fox, Jan 21 2002
   

       And if the source of the sound is another twitcher, playing a recording of a particular bird, in hopes of drawing it near enough to spot . . .

In the *other* meaning of the word -- children are nature's twitching aid. Always works for me.
—quarterbaker, Jan 21 2002
   

       I thought this would be a great thing to have until I imagined the reality (where I am anyway)....   

       <point powerful handheld listening device> - PIGEON - flying rat - common in London.   

       <point again> - PIGEON - etc   

       <point again> - BUDGIE - called Bluey - eats cuttlefish   

       <point again> - SEAGULL - lost - eats fag butts and toys with dead pigeons.   

       <point again> - PIGEON and so on
—notripe, Feb 20 2002
   

       <point again> - sparrow (numbers dwindling frighteningly - explanation required urgently.
—po, Feb 20 2002
   

       Wow, it <twitch> works great! This <twitch> idea and description is making <twitch> me twitch already.
—RayfordSteele, Mar 22 2002
   

       I thought this was to be a device to make my twitchings in church (bored with the whole thing) more acceptable to my wife.
—neelandan, Mar 23 2002
   

       I think this is a great idea. The computer might get it wrong though--I wonder how good a listening algorithm can be compared to human processing that filters out all the extraneous sounds. Still, if you could at least have the bird's call easily accessible for playback in the field--and I believe this feature is now baked. The recognition part of this seems to be a reasonable goal. Or you could clone our Audobon Society local Prez--he misses nothing and is the main reason to go on the outing because there will be birds even if you and I do not sense them--he will, and will point them out to all less-attuned beings.
—entremanure, Mar 23 2002
   

       If you can have voice recognition, you should be able to have song recognition. It could be fiendishly expensive and still marketable, since those folks will shell out the dough.
—bungston, Nov 25 2002
   

       Provided the handhelds have a good microphone with stark directionality, acquiring the song should not be a problem (we investigated ultrasonics in birds and for that goal did a lot of outdoors recording, mostly a normal directional microphone was sufficient). Most bird songs differ between regions though, with some birds imitating others.   

       Having a lot of people point their handhelds towards random birds, and adding [wylie_coyote]s continuation of this idea (gps), plus some networking could yield some very interesting grassroots-research into this subject.   

       Sampling rates of usual a/d converters are not sufficient for the higher reaches of bird song, though.
—loonquawl, Sep 03 2007
   

       Looks like it's now baked (link).
—bnip, Sep 08 2007
   


 

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