For the last six years or so, I’ve been running around with a parabolic microphone dish, roughly the size, shape and weight of a Weber braai’s lid. FIREFINCH currently features high quality sound clips of around 600 species, with more being added every day. Anton and I are also on our way to north-western Zambia to fill in some sound gaps (Ross’s Turaco, Yellow-throated Leaflove, Sharp-tailed Starling and RED-headed Quelea, to name but a few).

ABOVE: Red-throated Twinspot.

ABOVE: Red-crested Korhaan.

ABOVE: Red-eyed Dove

It’s one thing to just listen to a sound, but you can really appreciate all the details when you open it in software that plots the sound visually. As such, sound clips in FIREFINCH are accompanied by scrolling sonograms that point out interesting or important features, as in the example below.

Have a listen to the three lark species.  You can download them by right clicking and selecting Save Link As.