Type of site | Audio clip sharing |
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Available in |
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URL | www |
Commercial | No |
Registration | Optional |
Launched | May 30, 2005 [1] |
Current status | Active |
xeno-canto is a citizen science project and repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of bird calls and sounds of orthoptera and bats. [2] Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound recordings from more than 10,000 species worldwide, and has become one of the biggest collections of bird sounds in the world. [1] All the recordings are published under one of the Creative Commons licenses, [3] including some with open licences. Each recording on the website is accompanied by a spectrogram and location data on a map displaying geographical variation.
Data from xeno-canto has been re-used in many (a few thousand) scientific papers. [4] [5] [6] [7] It has also been the source of data for an annual challenge on automatic birdsong recognition ("BirdCLEF") since 2014, conducted as part of the Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum. [8]
The website is supported by a number of academic and birdwatching institutions worldwide, with its primary support being in the Netherlands. [9]
xeno-canto, which translates to "strange sound", is a sounds-only project seeking to highlight sounds of birds, rather than images or videos. xeno-canto was launched on May 30, 2005, by Bob Planqué, a mathematical biologist at VU University Amsterdam, and Willem-Pier Vellinga, a physicist who now consults for a global materials technology company. [10] At the time of the launch, the site held recordings of only about 160 species and originally aimed to collect recordings of birds from Central and South America. [1]
xeno-canto has now become global, expanding its coverage to North America, Africa and Asia, and finally to Europe and Australasia. By 2017, the data collection showed significant growth, containing about 360,000 recordings of about 9,750 bird species (which is nearly 90 percent of all bird species). [10] [11] Nevertheless, the collection is still far from complete. There are about 1,000 missing species, and for many species, there are only a few recordings, meaning they lack the variation in repertoire and dialect that the species display. [10]
xeno-canto aims to utilize the capabilities of the internet to improve the general popularity, accessibility, and knowledge of bird sounds. [1] So far, the recordings on xeno-canto have seen use in a variety of different ways including being featured on the Aviation Information System of India, [12] contributing to the STERNA project, [13] and being included in a Norwegian University's database. [14]
Since its founding, the website has set a number of set principles in order to keep the service community-driven. [1] These principles include:
The Arctic tern is a tern in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar breeding distribution covering the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America. The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates along a convoluted route from its northern breeding grounds to the Antarctic coast for the southern summer and back again about six months later. Recent studies have shown average annual round-trip lengths of about 70,900 km (44,100 mi) for birds nesting in Iceland and Greenland and about 48,700 km (30,300 mi) for birds nesting in the Netherlands. These are by far the longest migrations known in the animal kingdom. The Arctic tern nests once every one to three years.
The common snipe is a small, stocky wader native to the Old World.
The wood sandpiper is a small wader. This Eurasian species is the smallest of the shanks, which are mid-sized long-legged waders of the family Scolopacidae. The genus name Tringa is the Neo-Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific glareola is from Latin glarea, " gravel".
The great snipe is a small stocky wader in the genus Gallinago. This bird's breeding habitat is marshes and wet meadows with short vegetation in north-eastern Europe, including north-western Russia. Great snipes are migratory, wintering in Africa. The European breeding population is in steep decline.
The little bustard is a bird in the bustard family, the only member of the genus Tetrax. The genus name is from Ancient Greek and refers to a gamebird mentioned by Aristophanes and others.
The twite is a small brown passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae.
The common linnet is a small passerine bird of the finch family, Fringillidae. It derives its common name and the scientific name, Linaria, from its fondness for hemp seeds and flax seeds—flax being the English name of the plant from which linen is made.
The gull-billed tern, formerly Sterna nilotica, is a tern in the family Laridae. It is widely distributed and breeds in scattered localities in Europe, Asia, northwest Africa, and the Americas. The Australian gull-billed tern was previously considered a subspecies.
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs are distinguished by function from calls.
The summer tanager is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the tanager family (Thraupidae), it and other members of its genus are now classified in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). The species's plumage and vocalizations are similar to other members of the cardinal family.
The lesser spotted eagle is a large Eastern European bird of prey. Like all typical eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. The typical eagles are often united with the buteos, sea eagles, and other more heavy-set Accipitridae, but more recently it appears as if they are less distinct from the more slender accipitrine hawks than believed.
Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion and reception in animals. This involves neurophysiological and anatomical basis of sound production and detection, and relation of acoustic signals to the medium they disperse through. The findings provide clues about the evolution of acoustic mechanisms, and from that, the evolution of animals that employ them.
The white-bearded manakin is a small passerine bird which breeds in tropical South America. It can be found in Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidad south to Bolivia and northern Argentina. This manakin is found in forests, secondary growth and plantations. It is a small, plump bird about 10.7 centimetres (4.2 in) long. Males have a black crown, upper back, wings and tail and are otherwise white. Females are olive-green and resemble female golden-headed manakins. At breeding time, males are involved in lekking behaviour on the forest floor during which they puff out their neck feathers. This is a fairly common species with a wide range, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".
The lilac-crowned amazon, also known as lilac-crowned parrot, Finsch's parrot or Finsch's amazon, is a parrot endemic to the Pacific slopes of Mexico. Also known as Finsch's amazon, it is characterised by green plumage, a maroon forehead, and a violet-blue crown and neck.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary. Approximately 250 scientists, professors, staff, and students work in a variety of programs devoted to the Lab's mission: interpreting and conserving the Earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Work at the Lab is supported primarily by its 75,000 members.
The California gnatcatcher is a small 10.8 cm (4.3 in) long insectivorous bird which frequents dense coastal sage scrub growth. This species was recently split from the similar black-tailed gnatcatcher of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. This bird is often solitary, but joins with other birds in winter flocks.
The crested ibis, also known as the Japanese crested ibis, Asian crested ibis or toki, is a large, white-plumaged ibis of pine forests, native to eastern Asia. Its head is partially bare, showing red skin, and it has a dense crest of white plumes on the nape. It is the only member of the genus Nipponia.
The British finches are made up of several species of finch which were formerly very popular as cage birds in Great Britain. They are not currently commonplace, but are still kept by a few dedicated fanciers.
The least honeyguide is a small species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa.
Wildlife Acoustics, Inc. is a privately held United States company based in Maynard, Massachusetts. The company provides bioacoustics monitoring technology for scientists, researchers, and government agencies internationally. The company was founded by Ian Agranat in 2003. The company originally developed a product called the Song Sleuth, a device that would attempt to automatically identify birds from their songs in real time in the field. As this concept proved too expensive for the consumer market, the underlying technology was used to develop autonomous acoustic and ultrasonic recorders and analysis software for research scientists and other professional ecologists.