Nice idea but it's a shame the recordings are so short. I'd love some hours-long version that I could put on in the background and pair with a bit of ambient for fun.
I'd like to recommend a website I've been using for a very long time - mynoise.net - which seems to have exactly what you're looking for [0]. There are many different kinds of ambient noises you can play indefinitely, and there are even sliders you can use to compose your own "mix" of ambient sounds of a particular type (e.g. Wind Trees, Distand Stream, Close Stream, Owl, Birds, etc.).
There are many types of ambient sounds (I count 100 at the moment) available for free, and even more if you choose to donate to the site. You can donate any amount you want, and you get lifetime premium access to full site content.
The guy running the site, Stéphane Pigeon, is a signal processing PhD with a passion for sounds, and he travels the world recording ambient sounds for this website.
Oh wow, this is excellent, I love the ability to mix it, especially since the water sounds tend to overpower bird ones. This is exactly what I'd like, thank you so much!
A strong +1 for mynoise, especially the multi-noise mixing which is super-handy for drowning out coffee shops, offices, etc. whilst still having detail.
This looks nice! If you like this it's possible you might like this thing I made a few years ago. It allows you to choose an area from a map of the world and play bird sounds from there:
Looks neat. FYI, doesn't seem to work for me on mobile (Chrome 120.0.6099.210, Android 14). I see an empty map. Clicking help displays the help modal which I'm then unable to dismiss.
I appreciate trips to the country for the incredible birdlife. An outdoor pool I frequent is nestled among such lively birdlife I nicknamed it the "avian orchestra".
Have bookmarked this to play in the background while working.
Very cool. Would be lovely if you paired this with some of the auto-recognition and ID libraries out there so we can listen to the sounds of the forest AND see in real-time which birds are currently making noises. That'd be really cool. Then if you want to ruin it all, you add gamification where you learn to train your ear based on bird sounds and test your skills within all sorts of forests around the world.
Hi there, sorry I posted above before I saw your comment but I should have posted here. You're describing something very like my bird ID challenge! https://trogon.onrender.com/
Re the first part of what you say, rather than writing any software how about play tree.fm on our laptops and stick our phone down next to it with Merlin? That'll take about 1 minute to set up and is free!
There was a "singing tree" which played music, and I would often walk past them as I headed to-and-from classes, not far from the Brutalist edifice that we would come to know as the Geisel Library.
Then the "literary tree" played poetry and spoken word. Last but not least, the "silent tree" made no sound at all.
