🔭 Science, nature and the world
BirdNET
By Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and Chemnitz University of Technology. Visit BirdNET
Desk research from the maker's own pages. Not yet tried by us. Checked 2026-10-24.
A free research app that names birds and other animals from a few seconds of recorded sound. A child holds up the phone, records, and gets a list of likely species, filtered by location and season. Recordings are submitted to the research team and help improve the model. BirdNET also powers open-source tools for scientists and backyard listening stations, and its team runs a school project in Germany where students build AI birdhouses.
Our take: A good pick for a curious older child with a parent who is comfortable sharing recordings for science; Merlin is friendlier for beginners.
| Ages it suits | about 9 and up with a parent |
|---|---|
| What its terms say about age | Not stated in the app's privacy policy or the site's legal notice; we found no separate terms of use. App Store rating 4+. (terms) |
| Price | Free. Free (Oct 2026); funded by research grants and donations. |
| Works on | iPhone and iPad, Android |
| Account | No account needed |
| Ads | None |
| In-app purchases | None |
| The AI in it | A deep neural network turns recordings into spectrograms and matches them to more than 11,000 species, using location and date to narrow the list. |
What's good
- Free, no ads, research-backed
- Covers far more species than most apps
- Shows how sound becomes data
- Open-source tools for older students
Watch for
- Your recordings are kept and shared for research
- Precise location sent with recordings
- No stated age rule or child privacy terms
- Users report freezes and misses
Data and privacy
The app collects a random device ID, GPS location, audio recordings, and optional name and email. All submitted recordings are stored on the team's servers and used for research under a CC BY-SA license, so the policy advises users not to submit anything private. Read the privacy policy.
Does it work?
Peer-reviewed papers describe the model (Kahl et al., Ecological Informatics, 2021) and show app data can track real bird patterns (Wood et al., PLoS Biology, 2022). These are by the makers; we found no independent study of its use by children.
In the Big Index
- On the list 13 AI science and nature apps for curious kids
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Birdbuddy (AI bird feeder)
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BrainPOP (and BrainPOP Jr.)
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Where these facts come from
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/app/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/privacy-app/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/privacy/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/legal/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/k12/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/about/
- https://birdnet.cornell.edu/publications/
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/birdnet/id1541842885
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.tu_chemnitz.mi.kahst.birdnet
Prices, terms and features change. Nobody paid to be listed, nothing here is an affiliate link, and Peabody never rates itself. Where we and the maker disagree, the maker's own pages are the ones to trust.