Out now on iPhone · Early access on Android
Thicket listens and tells you which birds are singing, entirely on your phone, with the model you choose. Then it lets you tune almost all of it: what counts as common, how often it speaks up, how sure it has to be.
What it does
Most bird apps announce every robin, every time. Thicket tells you what’s new and then gets out of the way.
Thicket picks out species likely where you are this week, and rates each one High, Medium or Possible. It says Possible when it means it.
A live spectrogram shows the last ten seconds, with each bird’s calls drawn in its own colour. Drag back through the session to find the one you missed.
A bird is flagged the first time it sings, then left alone until it’s been quiet for a while. Mute the robin that won’t stop, snooze it for an hour, or mute everything the range model calls common and listen only for what isn’t.
Before you count a bird, replay the clip and confirm or reject it. Mark the ones you actually saw.
Every session is saved: where, how long, what sang. Your life list counts the species you’ve identified, all time, this year or this month, and how many of the birds likely around you this week you’ve had.
Badges for your first 10, 25, 50 and 100 species, the dawn chorus, a careful ear and a rare find. Turn them off if that isn’t your thing.
Recent reports from eBird and iNaturalist near you, rated Common to Rare for where you are and the time of year, with the five best places to go.
Turn on rare bird alerts and Thicket tells you when eBird flags something notable nearby, at most once a week for each species.
Your choice of model
Most bird apps hear through a single model, chosen for you. Thicket has two, built by different teams and trained in different ways, and you pick which one listens.
Built in
K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Chemnitz University of Technology
Free download in Settings
Google DeepMind
Both are weighted towards the birds likely where you are this week, and your settings, mutes, history and life list carry across when you switch.
Trained differently, the two don’t always agree. If a call puzzles you, switch and listen again, or run the same recording through the other.
Whichever you choose runs on the phone itself. Nothing you record is sent anywhere to be identified.
And
Two birders can use Thicket completely differently and both be right. That is the point.
How likely a bird has to be to count as common, how long before it’s flagged again, sensitivity, whether confidence shows as a percentage, whether clips are kept.
Export the birds you’ve checked to eBird or BirdTrack, or as a spreadsheet, and upload them to iNaturalist with the clip of the call. Birds you only heard are never exported.
Choose a photo (or take one, on iPhone), crop to the bird, and pick from the five most likely. Identified on the phone, like sound, and saved as a bird you saw.
Send a card of a session or a bird, with a waveform of its call, or the call itself as a sound file. Shares always say the bird was identified by sound.
English, Welsh, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch.
One optional account keeps your history and settings in step between them, and safe if you lose your phone.
How it compares
Most bird apps are made for the moment you don’t know what’s singing, and they’re very good at it. Thicket assumes you mostly do, and asks how you’d like it to behave.
| Feature | Other apps | Thicket |
|---|---|---|
| Who it’s built for | Someone hearing a bird they can’t name. | Someone who knows the common ones and wants to hear what isn’t. |
| The robin, the twentieth time | Named again, every time it sings. | Flagged once, then left alone until it’s been quiet for a while. |
| Common birds | Listed alongside everything else. | Mute or snooze any bird, or mute everything that’s common where you are and listen only for what isn’t. |
| How it behaves | The same way for everyone. | Yours to set: what counts as common, how soon a bird is flagged again, sensitivity, whether confidence shows as a percentage, how near a rarity must be to alert you, whether clips are kept. |
| Which model listens | One, chosen for you. | BirdNET V2.4 or Perch 2.0. Your choice, in Settings. |
| A long session | Best kept to a few minutes. | Up to two hours, on a spectrogram you can drag back through, each bird’s calls in its own colour. |
| Your recordings | Some are sent to a server to be identified. | Analysed on the phone. Works with no signal, and nothing is uploaded. |
| An account | Often needed to save or sync. | Optional. Everything works signed out. |
| Your records | Often tied to one platform. | eBird, BirdTrack, iNaturalist or a spreadsheet. Only birds you’ve checked go; birds you only heard never do. |
| What’s about | Usually a separate app. | Recent eBird and iNaturalist reports near you, rated Common to Rare, with optional rare bird alerts. |
| Cost | Free, paid, or a subscription. | Free. No ads, no subscription, no tracking. |
“Other apps” is a generalisation, and plenty of good ones do some of these things. Thicket makes no claim to be more accurate than anyone: it uses the same kinds of model other apps use. It’s built for a different kind of listening.
Privacy
Identification happens on the phone. Recordings and clips are never uploaded, and only go anywhere if you share them.
Listening, history, Recent News and every setting work signed out. Sign in only if you want your history to survive a lost phone.
Free, with no ads, no analytics, no tracking and no subscription. This website doesn’t track you either.
Identification by sound is hard, and Thicket gets things wrong, most often between species that genuinely sound alike. Treat Possible as a question, not an answer. Confidence percentages aren’t yet calibrated against field results.
One email, when Thicket reaches Google Play for everyone. That’s the whole list. Or join the early-access test and have it now.
About the developer
I’m Thomas Fearn. I’ve had a camera in hand since I was six, and most of my mornings are spent in hides and along woodland edges, where you come to know a bird’s call long before you see it.
Thicket grew out of those mornings. I wanted an app that would name what was singing, tell me when something new arrived, and otherwise let me listen.
My photographs have been shown in exhibitions around the UK, and Kingfisher on a Bulrush was an Official Selection at the International Photography Awards 2026.
The wildlife photographer Thomas Fearn, working as WildThingsUnhurried. Not associated with anyone else of the same name.
Identification uses BirdNET V2.4, developed by the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Chemnitz University of Technology, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, and Perch 2.0 by Google DeepMind. Nearby sightings come from eBird and iNaturalist.