Reviews and Testimonials

Far and away the best and most comprehensive [audio content] of any of the learning apps. ... A uniformly excellent sound-learning app that will prove useful to starters and experts alike.

This is a really cool tool! ... Very useful.

A Rosetta Stone for birdsong. ... Larkwire accelerates learning and retention vs. self-studying CDs of audio tracks.

Larkwire is a simple, easy-to-learn, ingenious app that will have you identifying birds by ear in no time! There is no better way to learn birds' songs (other than actually being in the field surrounded by birds and more capable birders).

It's like having a personal teacher who can pinpoint my weaknesses and make me work on them as I play. By far the best value for your money when you think about buying an avian audio guide. I am still amazed at the amount of sound files stored in there!

The answer to my prayers. This app is simply amazing. If you want to study recordings of bird sounds, this is the best tool for the job. Curated lists, a variety of recordings for each species, expert tips, and a brilliant and fun mechanism for study--this app is so much better than I could have hoped for.

A fantastic tool for learning and reviewing birdsong. ... What I can vouch for, as a teacher, is the solid learning theory behind the software—this program is sure to improve the speed and accuracy with which you identify birds by ear.

Larkwire is already helping immensely with my ability to bird in the field. And my 7-year-old daughter is asking for "that bird song game on the computer."—I guess you have THREE of us hooked!

Our family is loving learning bird songs using your website! Finally being able to know which birds are singing in the trees around us is an amazing experience. Our 8-year old daughter will play the "bird game" for an hour at a time and loves it.

Outstanding!! If you're looking to learn bird songs, either as a casual birder or at the expert level, this is your app! The app is set up in a way that makes you learn the actual bird songs, not just memorize an audio track. I have tried a couple other methods of learning bird songs and they were High School while Larkwire is Ivy League! I have personally put this app to the test in the field with other, more experienced birders and a few experts. My ability to recognize many different species of birds by ear was close to or on par with the vets and in a few cases I caught a few that were missed. I'm not saying I was better—because nothing trumps experience—but Larkwire gave me an awesome start and I was able to learn more than ever from other birders. I have emailed the developer with some feature requests and he emailed me back on the same day. So this app comes with great support and has a developer that cares, wants to make improvements and is also a fellow birder. Money well spent!!

A great idea for a learning tool. ... Really fun!

Overall, Larkwire is a great app that can be used to learn bird songs and continue year-round to refresh your memory of birdsongs. I'd highly recommend it.

I don't learn as quickly as I used to, but Larkwire seems to have overridden that tendency... I am learning songs I used to have trouble remembering. ... When you play, you really will learn bird songs and calls!

I'd been trying for years to learn birdsongs just by listening to the recordings, and made very little progress, but Larkwire gives you the equivalent of audio flash cards, organized into groups of four to eight that are similar. It's totally revolutionized my birding—I found my first ever Bay-breasted Warbler in Prospect Park because I recognized its song and went looking for it.

Best way to learn bird songs! This is by far my favorite way to study bird songs. I started studying them over 15 years ago with CD's that played the name and then the song. Then I moved on to Birding by Ear. It was better because similar songs were together and I learned what to listen for. There was also a quiz at the end. It was a huge improvement. Unfortunately, if you wanted to listen to a bird mid-track you had to either listen to the whole track. or forward until you found the bird. There was a small number of clips for each species and the total number of species was low.

Finally, along came Larkwire to change everything! I love that I can play confusing species side-by-side and listen to a large variety of clips. There is a lot of regional variation and Larkwire has done a nice job capturing it all. There are two study modes. Gallery mode plays a song and you choose one of four species pictured on the screen. Each time you correctly select a bird, you get a point. When you get it wrong, you lose a point. The program keeps quizzing you on the species you need to work on the most. The second study mode is Field Mode. For this review, you hear a song and indicate if you know the bird or not, then the photo is revealed. This is great for review! I love that you can choose from beginner, intermediate and advanced as well as which regions to study. Overall, this is my favorite way to study bird songs. I highly recommend this app. Thank you, Larkwire!

I like it a lot ... it motivates you to really pay attention and learn the different songs.

I adore it. I'm using it heavily these days to train my ear for warbler season.

I have used most tools out there. I have used Stoke's CDs, Peterson's CDs, both sets of Birding By Ear CDs, I have taken birding by ear courses in Cape May, gone on countless birding excursions with experienced leaders, I have taken notes while listeing to live and recorded songs, viewed sonograms, and this tool beats them all. Quite simply, it makes it fun. ...

Gotta go play again...err...learn some more bird songs, I mean.

... A perfect way to practice what you are learning on your own, in the field, ...

I've already begun to apply my knowledge from Larkwire Master Birder: Water Birds by keeping a sharp ear out for migrating Snow Geese and by identifying Northern Pintail by ear, surprising my birding companions in the field. Larkwire's water birds app pairs wonderfully with the land birds app, and provides an extremely useful tool for expanding your knowledge of bird sounds.

A fantastic resource. ... Playing the bird sound games is challenging and addicting and you actually do learn the bird sounds well.

Very smart and well-designed app backed by sophisticated adaptive learning strategies. One thing that's not immediately apparent is that it has many different sound examples for each bird species, so ... you end up being able to recognize the overall nature of each bird rather than just memorizing the quirks and cues of the one particular sample on a CD.

While nothing beats going out into the field to learn bird songs, Larkwire is the next best thing. Larkwire will be instrumental in my growth as a birder, and I recommend trying it out yourself.

Larkwire is truly addictive in the best possible way. Now that I have time to go birding in a big way, I am totally hooked.

I LOVE Larkwire. LOVE it. It has changed the way I bird and made things much more rich and interesting, especially the recently added waterbird / wader / shorebird pack. Recently I was able to identify a Virginia Rail by sound, when previously I thought it was some crazy early tree frog calling. ... Thank you for such a great program.

My 3.5 year old daughter played it yesterday, and was identifying birds singing outside at breakfast this morning. She had previous experience with most of them beforehand. Chickadee by sight and song, American Robin and Cardinal by sight, etc., but now she was totally dialed into their songs and probably more importantly, their songs in relation to each other. Now she's confident enough to call them out as she heard them in the same backyard chorus.

I just started using Larkwire this week and have already learned so much about similar species which often gave me pause in the field. Recently with the wave of Cape May and Blackpoll warblers in Wisconsin, I was concerned about whether I'd be able to regularly pick out a Bay-breasted by song. After a few rounds of Larkwire, and reading Michael's descriptions of each species, the song now jumps out at me in the field- as it did on my way into work two days ago (result: my first Wisconsin Bay-breasted Warbler).

Larkwire makes learning birdsong fun through a highly addictive game format. In short, I love it! Good listening!

... Allows the listener to gain a deep knowledge of each species' song over time.

Use Larkwire as your teacher and keep your Stokes and Peterson CDs as reference.

The difference in Larkwire is the control that it gives you to study and compare selected groups... Practicing with this software is what helped me pick out the Scarlet Tanager on our Elk Knob trip this summer!

Thank you for this innovative app. I am a field biologist working in the rugged country of SE Arizona and have many years of experience with bird surveys etc and still find your app amazingly helpful. I am introducing beginning birders and field assistants to Larkwire and the clever techniques introduced.

The Larkwire team believes that this system is "the easiest, fastest, most enjoyable way to learn bird songs". I agree with them. If you want to learn bird songs, especially if you've tried other methods with limited success, I'd recommend Larkwire.

I definitely recommend this program to not only beginners but advanced birders as well. It's a great opportunity to remain familiar with the songs/calls throughout the winter, or to study the birds throughout the rest of the continent!

I have had Larkwire for over a year and I love it. I have tried a lot of birding by ear cds and have never had anywhere near the success I had with this program. It really makes it fun and easy. I have found that I can identify easily twice as many birds on my walks just because I know 40 or 50 of the more popular birds in my area. Not only does it make identifying the ones I can't see possible but also to more positively identify some I see but am not sure of.

Thanks for a great product!

The rain stopped by the time we had arrived but we were completely socked in by clouds. We were not going to see much! Fortunately, my significant practice with the Larkwire birdsong recognition program paid off. On the trail up to the top, we only saw one bird -- a female Canada Warbler -- but I was able to ID several others including Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Blackburnian Warbler species, Winter Wren and Brown Creeper!

I bought the Larkwire app last week and this is simply a fantastic app. I've been telling my friends and ornithology colleagues about this app. I'd heard of Larkwire a while back, but hadn't realized just how useful it was. The quizzes and the variety of bird calls make this perfect for getting ready for the spring and summer field season (I often do point counts as part of environmental assessments).

I have to tell you how wonderful and clever Larkwire is. So user friendly. The way you have it organized to learn the songs is the best method I have ever seen. The tips and information available and ease of accessing them while you are learning a particular bird or group is very well thought out and extremely useful. The pictures are very good, too, as are the bird song written descriptions you provide as additional information when you are playing a set.

The ability to go back and forth from hearing the song to your written description of the song while learning a set is a tremendous help. Comparing the written descriptions provided with each set is so helpful. Great idea.

I am so happy you did this. It really is helping me learn the songs.