Join the Dawn Chorus: when, where and how?

You can participate in Dawn Chorus in many different ways

  • Collect bird calls

    With the Dawn Chorus app, you can consciously perceive nature wherever you are – with or without existing knowledge of the species. Your sound recordings document the presence of bird species and contribute to a constantly growing collection of data that is available for science and art. All you need to take part is a mobile device – smartphone or tablet – and the free Dawn Chorus app (for Android and iOS).

  • Share Dawn Chorus

    You can support us by inviting people to take part. Be it in personal contact, by e-mail (info@dawn-chorus.org) or social media: Instagram and Facebook. Dawn Chorus is also suitable for hands-on activities in a school context. Click here for school materials and learning.

  • Advancing bird song recognition

    Are you familiar with recognising native bird calls? Then you are cordially invited to participate in the analysis of the data and the further development of our AI. Click here for the AI.

  • Carry out your own projects

    Would you like to collect sound recordings with volunteers to answer a specific research question with Dawn Chorus? Do you have an idea for an artistic realisation of Dawn Chorus data? We cordially invite projects from science, art, culture and environmental education to collaborate with us. Click here for the contact form.

Contribute recordings

You can record from all over the world, wherever you are. We are looking for sound recordings that reflect a realistic picture of the environment. Man-made noise may also be heard.

In order to capture the early morning singers well, it is ideal to make and upload recordings in the period from one hour before dawn to one hour after sunrise – preferably several from the same location at different times. With the ‘triple recording’ function of the Dawn Chorus app, you can automatically make three one-minute recordings spread over half an hour at the touch of a button.

The bird concert is particularly polyphonic in spring, when breeding territories are marked out and mates are sought on the basis of the songs. To ensure comparability of the data, the main scientific collection period always takes place in May. Recordings outside of the collection period in May and the ideal time of day in the early morning are also welcome.

Participate via app

The app, now with AI-supported bird call recognition, is available free of charge for iOS and Android (from Android version 8/iOS version 11 ):

Of course there is also the option to upload your recodings via the Website-Upload.

Let’s get started: use the Dawn Chorus App to record your concert

Get ready

It is best to register and familiarise yourself with the app in advance so that recording in the morning is relaxed. Let the app show you the time of dawn and sunrise on site and set your alarm clock accordingly.

Make your recording

We recommend that you place your smartphone on a stable surface and start the automatic recording process. You have a few seconds to move away from your smartphone before the app records for one minute. Now please be very quiet. If you hold the device in your hand during the recording, it may cause unintentional noise. With “triple recording”, the app automatically makes three one-minute recordings, evenly distributed over a period of 30 minutes, without you having to enter the data repeatedly – or if you want to snooze for another round.

Additional Information

We then ask you a few additional questions for science

  • Weather: the local weather conditions may influence bird song – and can be quite different from what weather apps tell us.
  • Habitat: We want to know more about the environment of your Dawn Chorus recording (e.g. city versus forest).
  • Noise: Do you hear human-made or loud natural noise? These too can influence bird song but can’t be analysed reliably from the sound recordings.
  • Holiday/working day: The world may sound quite differently on a normal working day compared to a local holiday, at roughly the same time, especially in cities. Do you hear a difference?

Bird species

The new version of the app features automatic bird call recognition using ‘AI’ (artificial intelligence), for which Dawn Chorus uses the algorithm from BirdNET, an app from Chemnitz University of Technology and the Cornell Lab for Ornithology, which uses machine learning to recognise and classify bird calls and provides an innovative tool for nature conservation, biology and birdwatching.

Get creative!

You can upload a photo from your location to share your Dawn Chorus experience. Were you inspired by your early morning experience? Leave a poem, a story or simply a sentence about your experience. Use the app’s media art feature: “Sonic Feather – turning sound into art”

Read more about Sonic Feather.

Share and spread the word

Immediately after uploading, your recording can be found as part of the large bird choir on the global sound map, either on the map or in the tile view. You can share your contribution with your friends via Facebook, Instagram or directly via a link. In the app, you can also upload your recordings purely for the scientific study and hide them on the publicly visible sound map.

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Website-Upload

If you don’t have a smartphone, or if you have great recording equipment that you would like to use instead of your smartphone, you are welcome to upload the recordings via the website form. Please note, however, that we absolutely need unfiltered, uncompressed recordings in .wav format with a recording quality of at least 44.1 kHz and 16 bit. For technical reasons, the recordings cannot be too large.  If you have any questions, please use the contact form.

Upload a recording
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