A streaked brown sparrow singing on a bare branch, head thrown back and bill wide open

What a recording morning involves

The two hours after first light

Most recording happens in the two hours after first light, when birds sing most and wind and traffic are at their lowest. You walk slowly, stop when something sings, edge closer until the bird notices you, then hold still and record for a minute or more. Back home you copy the files to a computer, trim the best ones, look at them as spectrograms (pictures of sound, with pitch running up the page and time running across) and name what you caught. The recorder matters less than you would think. Distance, wind and your own rustling decide almost everything.

How to get started

Mark each one off as you go

Free software for trimming your clips

Audacity Free audio editor for trimming clips and viewing spectrograms on a computer

What you can record in your first month

A one-minute portrait of a yard bird

A single common species, close and clear, with your spoken notes at the end.

A dawn chorus soundscape

Ten unbroken minutes from one spot at first light, recorder on a tripod and you standing well back.

Your first archive upload

One trimmed clip attached to a checklist, with the date, place and gear filled in.

A sound list for your block

One short clip of every species you can record within a ten-minute walk of home.

Choosing a recorder and setting it up

Uncompressed WAV recording: archives ask for it, and MP3 smears the fine detail that separates similar calls.
Either manual level control or 32-bit float recording. With manual control you set the level yourself. A 32-bit float recorder has no level at all: it captures quiet and loud sounds in one pass and you adjust the volume afterward. Avoid a recorder that only sets levels automatically, because it pumps the background hiss up between notes.
Quiet preamps matter more than extra features. Birds are faint, so you turn the level up high, and a noisy recorder hisses when you do. Reviews that mention recording quiet nature sounds are the ones to trust.
Power from ordinary AA or AAA cells or by USB, so a dead battery in the field is a ten-second fix.
A tripod thread on the back or bottom, which lets you set the recorder down and step away.
Before every outing: fresh or freshly charged batteries, enough free space on the card, windscreen on, and one ten-second test clip played back through headphones.

A hand holding a black handheld audio recorder with a cable attached, dry brush out of focus behind it — A handheld recorder in the field

The skills that make the difference

Getting close without flushing the bird.
Halving the distance does more for a recording than any microphone upgrade.
Staying silent while recording.
That means feet planted, breathing through your mouth and no shifting your grip. The mic hears your sleeve before it hears the bird.
Aiming.
Built-in mics pick up a wide arc, so put the bird in front and the road or stream behind you.
Recording long.
Start before you are ready, keep going for a minute past the point you would stop, and let the bird finish.
Reading spectrograms.
Once you can see a song's shape you can identify birds you never saw and spot your own handling noise at a glance.

Ways to take it further

Open one to see the first thing to do. The shotgun mic and night migration cards can add their gear to the kit for you.

Walk-and-RecordThe default. A handheld recorder with built-in mics, used on foot or left on a small tripod. Best for close birds and whole soundscapes.

Start here

Pick one common, loud singer near home (a robin, a wren, a cardinal) and spend three mornings this week trying to get within 30 feet of it with the recorder running.

Macaulay Library

Shotgun MicA long, narrow microphone that favors sound from the front and plays down noise from the sides. It helps with single birds at a middling distance, and needs a recorder with the right input.

Start here

Before buying, listen to a dozen archive recordings whose notes list a shotgun microphone and a dozen made with a recorder's built-in mics, so you know what the upgrade does and does not change.

xeno-canto

Night MigrationMany songbirds migrate after dark and call as they pass overhead. You leave a recorder running outside all night and look through the file the next day for their short flight calls.

Start here

On the next clear, calm night in spring or fall, leave the recorder running outside from dusk, pointed straight up, then scan the first hour of the file as a spectrogram the next day.

Nocmig

A long, thin shotgun microphone pointing out across a misty field — A shotgun microphone aimed across a field

The in-depth guide to recording night migration

Nocmig Free guide to recording night migration: setup, software and identifying flight calls

Recording without bothering the birds

Skip playback. Playing a song to pull a bird closer stresses territorial birds in breeding season, and it is prohibited in US national parks and on many refuges and preserves.
Back off if a bird switches to sharp alarm calls or carries food without delivering it. You are too close to a nest.
Do not publish exact locations for owls, rare breeders or other sensitive species. Archives let you hide or blur the spot.
Ask before recording on private land, and stop recording when people are talking nearby. Laws on recording conversations vary by state.

What trips beginners up

Grey furry microphone windscreens on boom poles lying on the ground — Furry windscreens, the fix for wind rumble

Expect most clips to be unusable at first. One keeper from a morning is a good day.
Wind ruins more recordings than anything else. Even a light breeze rumbles on bare mics, so the windscreen stays on every time.
Your recordings will sound quieter and noisier than the ones in the archives. Mostly that is because those recordists were closer.
Planes, roads and lawn mowers are everywhere once you start listening. Early weekend mornings are the quietest hours you will get.
Stop judging clips on the recorder's tiny speaker. Faint birds and low rumble only show up on headphones or a spectrogram.
Stop cleaning up audio with heavy noise reduction or filters. Trim the ends, keep the rest as recorded, and never overwrite the original file.
Stop turning the level up until loud notes hit 0 dB. Clipped audio is distorted for good, and a quiet recording can always be raised later.

Where to learn

The big public sound archives double as schools: both publish free recording and editing guidelines, and every clip lists the gear and distance it was made with, so you can hear what your own setup should manage. One of them runs a forum where members name mystery sounds, usually within a day or two. For reading spectrograms, start with free articles written by field guide authors, then view your own files in a free spectrogram viewer. Local bird clubs rarely run recording workshops, but a member who records is usually glad to take a beginner along for a morning.

Sound archives, spectrogram guides and free software

Why the kit looks like this

The recorder is the only real expense, and a budget one is enough for close birds. The windscreen and memory card are small purchases that the recorder cannot work outdoors without. Headphones, rechargeable batteries and a small tripod each fix one common problem: noise you missed in the field, a recorder that dies at sunrise, and handling rumble. The two add-ons cover the directions above and are worth waiting on until you have a few weeks of recordings behind you. Parabolic dishes, the big reflectors you see in documentaries, are what dedicated recordists move to after that, and they are not a first-year purchase.

A handheld audio recorder with a cable plugged in, resting on a backpack on grass — A recorder and a small bag: most of the kit

Pack the field bag

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. The Shotgun Mic and Night Migration lines are add-ons and stay out of the kit until you switch them on.

Handheld digital audio recorder

EssentialCore equipment

It records uncompressed audio through far quieter microphones than a phone and gives you control over the level, which is what makes faint or distant birds usable.

budget

Xvive XV1-R Portable Stereo Audio Recorder with 32-Bit Float, X/Y Microphones, WAV/AAC Format, USB Microphone, Auto Record, for Musicians, Podcasters, Filmmakers

4.1(74)

$79.99

Bird Sound Recording

What a recording morning involves

How to get started

Choosing a recorder and setting it up

The skills that make the difference

Ways to take it further

Recording without bothering the birds

What trips beginners up

Where to learn

Why the kit looks like this

Pack the field bag

Handheld digital audio recorder

Furry windscreen for a handheld recorder

32GB microSD memory card

Closed-back wired headphones

Rechargeable AA batteries with charger

Mini tabletop tripod

Handheld recorder with XLR inputs

Shotgun microphone

Pistol grip shock mount for a shotgun microphone

Short XLR microphone cable

USB power bank

Bird song guide book