By Andrew Liszewski
At first glance, this Bird Song Identifier seems like it would be a great addition to any bird watcher’s kit. The device itself is about the size of a large highlighter, and works as a scanner for the included 54 page book. You simply scan the barcode for a particular bird, and you’ll hear a digital recording of its song played back through a small speaker. But while it might come in handy if you’re curious what a Sparrow sounds like, it’s almost completely useless for identifying a song you hear in the wild. Unless of course you’re willing to sit there and scan through 206 different birds until you hear the one that matches.
So as a learning tool for recognizing different calls by ear, it’s probably got some merit, but if you’re hoping to identify a bird simply by its call, you’ll want to get something like the Song Sleuth Birdsong Detective we wrote about a few years ago.
You can find the Bird Song Identifier at SkyMall for $99.95.
No…no….no… you read this all wrong.. you are supposed to catch the bird, stick the bar code on it.. then next time you hear the bird, you can catch it and scan it and here the call.