(iNaturalist newbie here …) I use Merlin often to identify birds from their songs and calls. However, the quality tends to be rather low for the recordings on my iPhone 13 Mini. I’d like to share better recordings on iNaturalist. Any tips? Maybe a plug-in USB microphone is available that works …

Hi, I am not an iPhone user (myself and my partner use Android (Samsung) phones for bird recordings for iNat). However, I do understand what you mean about the volume of such recordings being low and that background (especially traffic and people) noise can be intrusive. What I do is export the so…

Yes, I run a similar procedure on my Apple gear. First I upload the Merlin recording from the iPhone to my laptop; then, edit it in Quicktime to isolate the bird I want to identify; then “trim” the recording to include only the relevant segment. Then save and upload it into iNaturalist as an observ…

I’ve got an iPhone 13 mini and I use a RØDE VideoMicro to get better audio. It’s both a better microphone and it comes with a fluffy wind protector that gets me much better recordings on windy days. Recommended. For more investment, there are also bigger professional battery powered microphones tha…

I don’t know how well it works on iPhone and for birds outside of Europe, but I use the app BirdNET along with Merlin for audio recordings, a) because you can directly export/upload very short clips of just one bird easily, and b) because in my opinion it is better at filtering background noise and …

Hi! I use Merlin a lot since I am unilaterally Deaf, and it is often the only way I can “hear” birds well enough to ID them. I have tried some free audio editing software, but so far, none of them are that good. Others may have a better recommendation, however. [image] snowiiiiie: Audacity O…

I use an Edutige EIM-001 and a beefier headphone dongle. You will need some software to clean it up though. With the external mic, everything gets picked up and amplified, including stuff you don’t want to like traffic, the wind, your “silent” footsteps.

I don’t use apple products, but I do use Android. I’m currently using a Comica VM30 Shotgun microphone set to 150hz and 10DB which works great for recording bird that are close. You would just need to get a plug-in that would be capable for your iPhone. It is a wireless microphone, so you could plug…

I use this handy little Boya microphone sometimes. You plug it into your charging port. It definitely amplifies the sound of the birds and lessens background noise, but I have discovered that you cannot play audio from your phone while using it (that’s probably not an issue though). It is pretty in…

I use a pocket-sized Sennheiser MKE 200. It was recommended by a friend who’s a serious recordist when I asked how to up my game without a dedicated sound rig. It does make a big difference for fainter sounds (contrary to the eBird advice, https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/480…

Tools/techniques for recording bird sounds with an iPhone?

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Tools/techniques for recording bird sounds with an iPhone?

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