Identify Bird Sounds App: A Playful Way to Catch Birds

If you want to try it as you read, you can download Wings & Whistles and follow along.

If you've ever typed something like "identify bird sounds app" or "app to identify bird calls" into a search bar, you're exactly who I built Wings & Whistles for.

There are already some fantastic tools for bird sound identification. One of the big ones that helped me personally is Merlin. It's powerful, accessible, and very good at telling you what you're hearing in the moment.

Wings & Whistles grew out of a simple question:

This post walks through how modern bird sound ID works, how Merlin helped me get started, and what makes Wings & Whistles a more playful, collectible way to explore bird sounds.

What People Actually Want From a Bird Sound Identification App

When someone goes hunting for an "identify bird sounds app," they're usually after a mix of a few things:

• Quick answers: What bird is making that sound, right now
• Clarity: A simple, confident match instead of a wall of confusing options
• A way to learn: Not just a name, but some sense of how to recognize it again
• A bit of fun: Something that makes stepping outside feel more like an adventure than homework

Most apps focus heavily on the first two: quick and accurate identification. Wings & Whistles cares about that too, but its main mission is to make the whole experience feel more playful, more memorable, and a little bit collectible.

How Bird Sound ID Apps Work (Without the Math)

Most bird sound identification apps follow a similar basic pattern:

1) You record the bird

You hold your phone up, tap record, and let the microphone listen for a few seconds while the bird sings or calls.

2) The app turns sound into a "picture"

Behind the scenes, the audio is converted into a spectrogram: a kind of picture of sound that shows pitch and intensity over time.

If you've ever seen a colored heatmap with squiggly lines going up and down, that's the general idea.

3) The app compares it to known bird sounds

A machine learning model takes that spectrogram and compares it to a large library of labeled bird recordings:

• "Does this pattern look like a Song Sparrow?"
• "Does it match a Northern Cardinal?"
• "Is it closer to a Carolina Wren?"

4) You get suggested matches

From there, the app shows you likely species:

• Sometimes just one very confident match
• Sometimes a couple of candidates to choose from
• Often with tips about background noise or recording length

That solves the immediate puzzle: What is this bird? But there's a second, quieter problem:

That's where Wings & Whistles focuses its energy.

Merlin Helped Me Get Started

My own bird-by-ear journey started with Merlin.

It's an incredible app. It's free, it's powerful, and it made bird sounds feel approachable instead of mysterious. I'd go on walks, record a few birds, and get that little thrill when Merlin nailed the ID.

Over time, though, I noticed a pattern:

• I'd record a bird
• Merlin would identify it
• I'd read the name, maybe listen once
• Then I'd move on

The next time I heard the same bird, I often didn't remember it. The answer wasn't sticking.

I didn't just want correct IDs. I wanted the experience to feel like discovering something, collecting it, and slowly building familiarity.

From Merlin to "What If This Felt More Like Pokémon Go?"

Around the same time, I kept thinking back to the early days of Pokémon Go:

• Walking outside felt like a treasure hunt
• Every new creature was a small event
• You weren't just "checking" what was around you. You were collecting it

I started wondering: could listening for real birds feel a little more like that?

Not in a gimmicky way. More like:

• Every new bird sound you identify feels like a catch
• Your discoveries build into a collection, not just a scroll of recordings
• The app stays respectful of actual wildlife while still being playful

That line of thinking eventually became Wings & Whistles: an app to identify bird sounds that leans into fun, light gamification, and the joy of building your own little "sound dex."

Merlin helped me name the birds. Wings & Whistles is my take on making that process feel more like an adventure.

What Wings & Whistles Does Today

Here's what the current version of Wings & Whistles focuses on.

1) A calm, audio-first match screen

When the app detects a bird, you land on a clean, audio-first screen:

• The bird's name
• Simple match information
• A focus on the sound, not a dense wall of text

The goal is to make those first few moments of discovery feel clear and uncluttered, especially if you're new to birding.

2) Bird cards that make each ID feel like a catch

When Wings & Whistles detects a bird, you don't just see its name and move on. You get a dedicated bird card you can open up and explore.

Each card includes:

• A bright, detailed illustration that brings the bird to life
• The species name and its scientific name
• A points banner for what you earned from this sighting
• A playback button with the bird's sound
• A "Sighting Likelihood" indicator (like Common or Rare) that hints at how often you might run into it

It turns a simple match into a moment: not just "That was a Northern Cardinal," but "Nice, I just earned the Northern Cardinal card."

3) A growing collection that feels like a "sound dex"

Every time Wings & Whistles identifies a new species for you, your collection grows.

Over time, you can:

• Scroll through all the birds you've "caught" by sound
• Revisit your favorites
• Use your collection as a gentle memory aid: "Which birds have I actually heard around here?"

It's a subtle shift from "I've used an app a bunch" to "I'm building my own little gallery of real birds I've encountered."

4) Built with beginners and casual nature lovers in mind

Wings & Whistles is especially tuned for people who:

• Notice birds but don't know where to start
• Want an approachable bird sound identification app that doesn't feel intimidating
• Enjoy the idea of collecting experiences outdoors
• Like a bit of playful, Pokémon Go-style energy in their apps

The language is simple. The UI leans more cozy and playful than clinical. The whole thing is meant to feel like a friendly invitation into bird sounds, not a test.

How Wings & Whistles Fits With Merlin and Other Apps

Rather than thinking in terms of "this app versus that app," it's more useful to think in terms of a toolkit.

Here's how they can fit together:

In other words, if you already use Merlin (like I did), Wings & Whistles doesn't have to replace it. It sits alongside it, adding a more playful, collectible layer on top of the same curiosity that sent you searching for a bird sound app in the first place.

Who Wings & Whistles Is For

You'll probably enjoy Wings & Whistles if:

• You like the idea of an app that can identify bird sounds, but you also want it to feel fun
• You're a beginner or casual birder who finds traditional field guides overwhelming
• You enjoy collecting things: photos, badges, achievements, and like seeing your progress over time
• You want a reason to step outside, even for a few minutes, and pay attention to what's singing around you

If that sounds like you, you're exactly in the sweet spot this app is designed for.

How to Get Started

Getting going with Wings & Whistles is simple:

Wrapping Up: More Than Just an "Identify Bird Sounds App"

If all you need is a quick ID, there are already great tools out there, and you should absolutely use them.

Wings & Whistles exists because I wanted something a little different:

• An identify bird sounds app that doesn't stop at the answer
• A way to make each bird feel like a small discovery
• A playful, Pokémon Go-inspired way to build a real-world collection of bird sounds you've actually heard

If you're curious about the birds around you and like the idea of turning "What was that?" into a little adventure, Wings & Whistles is for you.