[HN Gopher] BirdLingo: A birdsong learning game
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       BirdLingo: A birdsong learning game
        
       Author : selfserve
       Score  : 145 points
       Date   : 2024-02-10 05:37 UTC (17 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (jessicalieb.itch.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (jessicalieb.itch.io)
        
       | danielskogly wrote:
       | Very charming, and also quite nice to learn the various sounds!
        
       | rwdf wrote:
       | Nice game! I would like to see the scientific names of the birds,
       | too.
        
       | stephen123 wrote:
       | That was fun. I like birds but I'm no twitcher, spent a good
       | 10min going through getting better at recognising the sounds.
       | 
       | It would be fun if you could pick a country the birds are from.
       | Australian birds sound silly.
        
       | larodi wrote:
       | Wonderful effort, but it would be indeed magnificent to show the
       | texts in local language - for them children to understand around
       | the world. Bird names are definitely not alike across
       | translations...
        
       | schobi wrote:
       | Wonderful game!
       | 
       | Feature request: please localize... I hardly know the bird names
       | in my language. Learning the English names is not helping.
        
       | henjodottech wrote:
       | Wonderful. Can also recommend Anki decks, there's good ones with
       | calls and they're localized. I only studied the European one.
       | Also to supplement, nothing beats birdNET. Walk around a forest
       | with the app on and match the bird names to the actual songs
       | you're hearing.
        
         | the_alchemist wrote:
         | I like Merlin better, it is the 'live match' version. With
         | birdnet you have to record and submit. Both are from the
         | Cornell Lab for ornithology.
        
           | henjodottech wrote:
           | I'm not familiar, will check it out thanks.
        
       | seafoamteal wrote:
       | Absolutely lovely! I got invested without even realizing. Like
       | some other people have said, showing the scientific names of the
       | birds and also the option to switch to other languages would be
       | great features.
        
       | hermitcrab wrote:
       | We get a lot of birds in our garden, but I'm not great at
       | connecting the bird calls with the birds. Hopefully this will
       | help, thanks!
        
       | zeristor wrote:
       | This is excellent.
       | 
       | I have been using the amazing Merlin up to ID bird song, I'd like
       | to recognise bird song without needing an app, but I still have a
       | long way to go.
        
       | viraser wrote:
       | great game, thanks.
        
       | luma wrote:
       | Neat! Others have mentioned language localization, but I think
       | the main missing piece here is species localization. Of the first
       | set of birds presented to me, exactly none are native to my area.
       | 
       | Learning bird calls is like an outdoor superpower but I think
       | it'd be a little better if you could focus the user on songs they
       | are going to hear in their area.
        
         | smackay wrote:
         | Birds have accents, or at least their calls and songs vary by
         | region. They're generally recognisable as being similar but
         | sometimes it can be confusing. Throw in species like starlings
         | or bluethroats (Luscinia svecica) which are accomplished mimics
         | and life gets complicated.
         | 
         | Still, it's a great idea. Just listening to a blackbird (Turdus
         | merula) or song thrush (Turdus philomelos) singing on a nice
         | Spring evening is life-affirming all by itself.
        
       | dannyfritz07 wrote:
       | eBird offers a good sound or image quiz. You can choose the
       | location, time of year, and rarity of the birds it presents you
       | in the game. https://ebird.org/quiz/
        
       | Hnrobert42 wrote:
       | Was anyone able to load this on mobile? I tried Firefox Focus and
       | Safari. Both got to the game, but then it failed load. :-(
        
       | endofreach wrote:
       | Very cool, i will try it out. I was actually kind of looking for
       | something like that. Looks very well made.
       | 
       | Super OT: I just think the lastname "lieb" seems unfortunate as
       | the ending for a subdomain of a site named itch.io...
        
       | zug_zug wrote:
       | Love all the effort put into this.
       | 
       | I don't know if I'm the typical user, but I came into it with
       | eagerness but left feeling like I was pressed into studying. I'm
       | the type of person who likes to learn one a day and feel like
       | that's a good job (e.g. wordle). Most of the birdcalls I'm
       | learning are fun/incidentally through the IOS port of wingspan,
       | which I enjoy immensely.
        
       | xandrius wrote:
       | This post made me finally want to create an account and stop
       | lurking HN :D
       | 
       | Cool project! I've been working on a similar project myself.
       | We've started with South African birds (as we have a connection
       | with a local charity there) but plan to expand to different
       | countries around the world to support different habitats and more
       | localised species.
       | 
       | If anyone is interested to check it out, I'd love some feedback:
       | https://birdle.co.za (it's both web and an app)
        
         | Izmaki wrote:
         | Great idea! :)
        
           | xandrius wrote:
           | Thanks!
        
       | MoOmer wrote:
       | Super fun! Some feedback on stability:
       | 
       | Crashed on iPhone XS Max, iOS 17.4 Firefox and safari
       | 
       | We were able to play the Garden round through to the end on an
       | android tablet (Firefox), but when we selected woodland, it froze
       | after the first bird.
        
       | Izmaki wrote:
       | Forced full-screen sucks on a 49" ultra-wide monitor, lol.
        
       | zcw100 wrote:
       | I have a question about bird songs in general. Why is a chorus of
       | birds sound so pleasant and not cacophonous? Have they evolved
       | songs that sound pleasant together? Have we evolved to think it
       | sounds good? Is it just random chance?
        
       | comboy wrote:
       | I love it, thanks :)
        
       | frabbit wrote:
       | Fantastic! Well done. As someone that is not a twitcher but is
       | interested in knowing what I hear around me on a walk this was
       | easy to use with a low effort entry point.
        
       | defart wrote:
       | Somehow i feel that Birdolingo would be a better name :)
        
       | bootsmann wrote:
       | While we're at it, if you like birds I can highly recommend
       | people to get the Merlin Bird ID app for their phones. It has a
       | function where you can put it on your table and it will highlight
       | all the birds whose songs it can hear. Its not perfect (for
       | instance it struggles with the european milvus) but its mostly
       | accurate and especially useful if there is a bird you don't
       | recognize.
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-10 23:01 UTC)