Recordings

Your bird recordings, catalogued like your sightings.

If you record bird sound, Yearbirder brings your WAV files into the same catalog as your sightings and photos. See each recording as a spectrogram, play it back with a synchronized cursor, and filter your library by species, region, date, and the audio properties that matter to a recordist.

Import that finds the right checklist

Add your WAV recordings and Yearbirder reads their embedded date and time — including the timestamp your recorder writes into the file — to suggest the matching checklist and species. When a recording captures more than one bird, you can assign it to several species at once, and it appears under each.

Reads embedded recorder timestamps, with a file-name fallback
Suggests the checklist and species automatically
Assign a single recording to multiple species
Add a rating and notes as you import

Yearbirder Add Recordings screen matching WAV files to checklists and species

See the sound, follow the cursor

Open any recording in an enlargement view with a full spectrogram you can customize by zooming both the kHz and the time, and adjusting the contrast. Play it back and a cursor tracks the sound in real time, so you can follow a song note by note. Rate each recording and add notes to build a library you can search and sort.

Full spectrogram view with zoom
High-quality playback with a synchronized moving cursor
Rate recordings and add searchable notes
Sort by species, date, rating, or taxonomic order

Yearbirder recording enlargement with a large spectrogram and playback cursor

A playback cursor you can trust

Different audio hardware introduces different amounts of latency between what you hear and where the cursor sits. Yearbirder's per-device audio calibration lets you align the two once, so the cursor stays true to the sound on your setup — headphones, interface, or built-in output.

Per-device sync calibration
Keeps the cursor aligned with what you hear
Set it once; Yearbirder remembers each device

Yearbirder audio sync calibration screen

Chart and map your recordings

Your recordings feed the same charts and maps as the rest of your data. Track how many species you've recorded and your year-to-date pace, plot your recordings on an interactive map, and play them back in sequence to follow your recording travels over time.

Recording charts: totals, year-to-date, accumulation, and pie by family
Geolocated recordings map with spectrogram previews
Animated recording-sequence map that plays your recordings back over time
Audio Species Gallery of your best recording per species
Batch-rename recordings from species name, date, and location

Yearbirder recording charts showing totals and year-to-date pace

Filter your recordings every way that matters

Beyond species, region, date, and season, Yearbirder lets you filter your recordings by their audio properties — so you can find exactly the cuts you're after.

Species, region, date range, and season
Rating range
Recording duration