Home Animal Sound Effects Bird Sound Effects
Great bird sound effects libraries, including exotic bird sound effects, recordings of common and rare birds from around the world and more – both flocks, dawn choruses, nature ambiences and single bird sounds.
A while back we stayed at an AirBNB near Joshua Tree National Park. The hosts set up a bird feeder right outside the porch which inevitably drew what seemed to be the entirety of the region’s wildlife to our doorstep, including a bobcat and some coyotes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any sound from the bobcat, and only mediocre recordings from the coyotes, but the Gambel’s Quails stole the spotlight and gave us a lot of interesting and goofy sounding bird calls to listen to. The atmosphere the birds created was so interesting to us that we spent countless hours listening, taking photos and recording them.
African Wildlife is an utterly unique collection of pristine wildlife and nature sounds, recorded in the wilderness of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia over a period of 4 months, 2015. It comes in four categories, covering Mammals, Birds, Ambience and Insects recordings.
It features animals such as elephant, baboon, jackal, lion, rhino, buffalo, hippo, impala, zebra, bat and hyena, as well as insects and 45 species of birds. 50 minutes of ambience recordings are also included.
The diversity of African wildlife sounds is widely reflected in this library, with the material including but not limited to screaming, barking, growling, roaring, breathing, grunting, feeding, hooting, warbling, screeching, farting, guffawing, whooping, gurgling, rutting, yapping, snorting, tweeting, trumpeting, chattering and squeaking.
Extensive metadata including detailed information on location, species, habitat, behaviour and usage is included, formatted for Soundminer. Metadata sheets in .xls and .csv formats are also provided.
Recording equipment: Sennheiser MKH8040-ST (ORTF) / Sony D100 / Telinga MK2 / Sound Devices USBPre2 / Tascam DR-680
The Exotic Birds sound effects library is a unique collection of 24 different species of exotic birds. It features birds like flamingos, parrots, parakeets, crane, crow, ibis, peacock, and many others.
Bali mynah • Black headed ibis • Canada goose • Chilean Lapwings • Collared parakeet • Crows • Grey parrots • Grey winged trumpeter • Guira Cuckoo • Indian peacock • Kookaburra • Little bustard • Macaw parrot • Moorhen • Palm nut vulture • Paradise crane • Parakeet mouse • Red breasted goose • Red flamingos • Senegal parrots • Southern screamer • Superb starling • White naped crane
The Crows library includes 30 stereo tracks of nothing but crow sound effects, perfect for single isolated effects, but also for ambience track layering.
Every sound is recorded inside forests, and close to crows’ nests with younger birds being fed and calling out, and next to natural habitats where bigger flocks gather in trees. It also has a variety of up-close caw sounds from the only tame albino crow in Scandinavia, recorded in a bird’s zoo.
The crow has quite a large vocabulary, and the classic calling usually is a little different from bird to bird. Some are more round when sounding out, while others are just plain hoarse and rusty-sounding.
The library includes both untreated tracks, and noise reduction-processed tracks in two separate folders. Noise reduction-processed tracks have been cleaned up with a CEDAR NR system.
Equipment used: Telinga Stereo Microphone and Flexible dish, and Sound devices 702 Recorder.
All tracks are 96K/24 bit apx. 1 Gb big when unzipped. All meta data tagged.
The Seagulls sfx library includes 28 tracks of both single, isolated seagull screams, and bigger flocks of nesting seagulls, calling out to each other and their chicks. There are plenty of classic call sounds, but also some weird throaty and raspy screaming, and what could sound like seagull laughing sounds.
All tracks are recorded with the very useful zoom function of the Telinga microphone and dish.
Library includes both untreated tracks, and noise reduction processed tracks in two separate folders. Noise reduction processed tracks have carefully been cleaned up with a CEDAR NR system.
Though these birds are in an abundance around most harbours and industry around here, they are not always easy to record. You mostly hear them from a distance, or from places not easy to access. When you try to get close to them, they will usually fly away.
Many hours have been spent on rooftops, gardens, backyards, a junkyard, and different harbours to get this material.
Sounds for this library were recorded over 5 sessions – in a private zoo and in the field, all in cooperation with professional birds trainers. Â All of them were recorded outdoor (and just a few in an outdoor aviary). Trainers helped us to get variety of bird calls and vocalisations, like: shriek, cry, squawk, screech, whistle, scream.
Three sessions, were recorded extremely close to birds on very quiet big field. The intention was to grab very isolated and rich sounds, useful for sound design. For this sessions we used Sanken CO-100k and Sennheiser MKH-8060, which were super close (just a few centimeters away from brids beaks) and Schoeps CMC-6XT MK41 a bit wider for more natural/open sound. Although sometimes Sanken and Sennheiser sound very similiar (they were in similar position), we left both files. Sanken recordings (@192kHz) are amazing for pitch shifting, yet sounds recorded by Sennheiser are very natural in neutral pitch.
When pitch shifted, all sounds become very evocative and emotional sound design sources.
All files contain natural sequences and rhythms of calls. There are also close wing flaps, movements and even sounds of birds eating recorded in macro close POV.
The library is extensively metatagged in Soundminer.
Please note: Pitch shifted files in the demo are presented only to show potential of those recordings and aren't included in the library.
Get the sounds of exotic birds – a huge collection of seagull recordings – with the Birds Extension SFX library:
This collection of sounds contains a nice variety of birds: 18 different species spread across 41 audio tracks – including Chachalaca, Great Kiskadee, Crow, Goose, Great-tailed Grackle, Hen, Macaw Parrot, Magpie, Motmot Turquoise Sourcils, Nestor Kea Parrot, Peacock, Rooster, Snow Owl, Yucatan Woodpecker and more. The sounds have been recorded in Mexico, Finland and France. Seagulls available in a separate pack.
The sounds have been recorded in 24bit / 96 kHz Stereo or Mono, the Mono tracks have been recorded with a wide-frequency response microphone (30 Hz to 50 KHz).
Library specs: 41 tracks mono or stereo (mostly stereo) • 949 MB • 29 minutes total
This collection of sounds contains 20 seagull tracks, and a nice Tern close-up recording. You will find a nice variety of seagulls vocalizations such as calls, scream, screeches. Some single close-up recordings and some large group recordings. All the sounds have been recorded in Finland and France.
The sounds have been recorded in 24bit / 96 kHz Stereo or Mono, the Mono tracks have been recorded with a wide-frequency response microphone (30 Hz to 50 KHz).
Library Specs: 20 tracks mono or stereo (mostly mono) • 371 MB • 14 minutes total
Contains both packs above, at a special price!
Bundle Specs: 61 tracks mono or stereo • 1.32 GB • 44 minutes total
Urban Crows is a library full of interesting sounds of single crows and swarms.
These proud birds deserve a lot more attention than they usually get. They are amazingly intelligent, social and by no means aggressive or monotonous when it comes to their communication capabilities.
The library evolved throughout winter 2015/16 and was taken from the attic of a house surrounded by trees were the crows frequently stayed overnight. So it was a great pleasure to record them arriving in the evenings as well as hearing them chatting during the dawn. They have a huge arsenal of clearly distinguishable single caws, funny sighs or nervous screams that often evolved to a huge cluster of noises that became stronger when the church bells began to ring and the sun came up.
All takes are recorded in Mid-Side stereo, with Sennheiser MKH-70 shotgun for a strong mid-signal and AKG-C394B for the ambience. The total playing time of the library is approx. 1h 30min.
We ‘domesticated’ planet earth and shaped it to our ideal human imaginary needs. Before that, the world belonged to nobody, wilderness was the norm! Powerful, wild and sometimes weird animals ruled the world.
Despite the current accelerating extinction of biodiversity, wildlife still exists in small pockets, and many animals are still alive and have a voice!
Naturally wild animals became the backbone of our project, but also wild sounds of animals in general. We thus literally went hunting for sounds. Though this kind of hunt gratefully does not harm Nature or animals.
With this library, we really went above and beyond. We explored all 4 corners of the world in places we wouldn’t have expected. Similar to wildlife photography, we sharpened our tools and methods to get the correct zoom with the right focus on the sounds of these animals. Along the way, we got some mishaps and misadventures which are part of the process. We thankfully are still alive; hence we can now today offer you the fruit of our quest.
Born Wild is now becoming the pinnacle of our Articulated sound journey, and we are proud to present it to you. We believe this library will give instant gratification as the content is so unique, rich, and meticulously curated.
We also hope that this library can sensitize and leverage efforts in protecting the planet where we all come from. This is why we are giving 3% of all sale revenue to ONG caring about wilderness and conservation.
Let’s keep our wild instinct alive!
Features:
Includes recordings of:
Or for a larger selection collection of bird sounds, check out European Birds 2!
A variety of Raven vocal sounds recorded around a Greenlandic dog pen. Includes multiple 1-5 minute files as well as short isolated honks, squawks, calls, clips, and purrs. Recorded with 2x Sennheiser 8040 in a Cinela ORTF blimp on a straight microphone stand with a Mixpre – 3 at 24b/96k
A large collection of cormorant recordings – including some super-close ones! – recorded over the span of two months, in a colony with over 1000 nests. The cormorant library features a total of 119 minutes of recordings, captured from many different places in the cormorant colony – and it comes with a huge range of squeals, calls and chirps from both adults and nestlings.
Birds – Avifaunistic – Ornithology
In this library, I gathered 250 clean recordings of songs & calls of some of the most common and some rare birds from Europe and Asia. Many of them also live in Africa (all year or during winter) and a few also live in Australia, New Zealand or America.
These recordings are ideal to fill in gaps in dialogue (as background sweetener), create authentic landscapes, to use as a original bird voice or to create creatures from pitching & editing the recordings. Bird vocalization is great to set a mood in a game or a movie. Use the nightingale to create a romantic atmosphere or use some gulls to create a place near the water.
The focus is on clean single bird song & call recordings.
All recordings (except one) have been made in the nature; of wild birds. Although I used a broad variety of techniques and technic and have been out in the meadows, woods, mountains, and riverbanks often as early as 3 am, on some recordings, due to the habitat these animals live in, there are other birds or other noise (of course very low in volume) in the background. Some recordings are heavily edited, to isolate the voice, so you can place the song in any ambiance, others didn’t need any editing except a simple low cut.
I also included a few ambiances where two or more bird species are dominant.
All recordings have the English, the scientific (Latin), and the German name in the metadata. I also included the distribution and the habitat. That way it will be easy for you to create an authentic soundscape depending on the region and landscape you are trying to represent in your media.
Another big part of the library is the “Build Your Own Bird” part.
I extracted single beeps, chirps, screams & pecking and you can easily build a very own bird species from these recordings, that are named with tonal information. So it is easier to build a sad or happy vocalization. Or a robot bird. I didn’t tune the chirps to allow more natural results when creating your own species. When playing along music, you should sometimes tune the sounds to the root key, given in the name of the file.
The 61 bird species voices included are:
Blackcap, Black Bird, Black Grouse, Black Headed Gull, Bluethroat, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Cockatiel (Escape), Common Buzzard, Common Chaffinch, Common Kingfisher, Common Firecrest, Common Raven, Common Swift, Common Wood Pigeon, Corn Crake, Cuckoo, Coot, Dunnock, Eurasian Golden Oriole, Eurasian Nuthatch, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Eurasian Skylark, European Robin, Egyptian Goose, Gardenwarbler, Goldcrest, Great Tit, Greylag Goose, Great Cormorant, Great Crested Grebe, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Greater Flamingo, Greater White-Fronted Goose, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, House Sparrow, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Long-Tailed Tit, Mallard, Marsh Tit, Marsh Warbler, Nightingale, Northern Lapwing, Reed Warbler, Short Toed Treecreeper, Song Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Tawny Owl, Tree Pipit, Treecreeper, Tufted Duck, White Backed Woodpecker, White Wagtail, White Throat, Willow Warbler, Yellowhammer
There are also a few wings, flocks, pecking and recordings of juvenile birds included.
Please note, I respected the flight distance of all the birds, stayed on the path, and didn’t approach nests (I built a nesting box and included a lav and a long cable, I can only encourage to do the same). The recordings were made during countless sessions in Essen, Bottrop (Kirchheller Heide), Duesseldorf (Urdenbacher Kaempe), Zwillbrocker Venn, and Oberammergau.
In addition, I am not an ornithologist. I listened back to all recordings with the Macaulay Library to verify my classifications and checked with experts, were in doubt. I am confident, I got all of them right, but if you feel like a call or a song belongs to another bird species, please let me know.
If you are looking for a specific bird species please check the file sheet prior to buying. While most birds have multiple calls & songs in this library, some may have one file with a single call only.
The naming structure is compliant with the Universal Category System (UCS).
Includes:
Features:Â
Get the stunningly detailed sounds of one of nature’s tiniest aerial acrobats flapping and fluttering in one of the quietest outdoor places in the continental United States. With their ultrasonic chirps, mesmerizing flight abilities and evolution-exhibiting beaks, this library captures the sounds of these rarely heard creatures from a mere two inches away.
2% for the Planet:
Two percent of the price of this library is donated to an environmental cause. I view it as an “artist royalty” for the planet!
Birds Of Prey delivers an extraordinary collection of flying raptors: Buzzards, cranes, eagles, falcons, goshawks, vultures, owls and more.
The wildlife of the skies represents itself with calling, chirping, shrieking, cawing, screeching, growling and other unique bird voices.
Whether aggressive or social, anxious or relaxed, melodic or irregular – get ready for a concert of the remarkable!
The collection offers more than 3.6 GB and more than 900 sounds in 160 files of high-quality material.
Black Chested Eagle Buzzard • Common Buzzard • Citron Cockatoo • Major Mitchell's Cockatoo • Umbrella Cockatoo • Blue Crane • Cape Crow • African Fish Eagle • Bald Eagle • Bateleur Eagle • Booted Eagle • Eastern Imperial Eagle • Golden Eagle • Martial Eagle • Stellers Sea Eagle • Tawny Eagle • White Tailed Eagle • Greater Kestrel Falcon • Lanners Falcon • Pygmy Falcon • Saker Falcon • Taita Falcon • Pale Chanting Goshawk • African Cuckoo Hawk • African Harrier Hawk • Harris Hawk • Red-tailed Hawk • Hadeda Ibis • Yellow Billed Kite • Barn Owl • Snowy Owl • Spotted Eagle Owl • African Grey Parrot • Cape Vulture • Monk Vulture • Palmnut Vulture
The Sounds that the Roosters and Hens do when the humans aren’t around.
The library was recorded at a Mexican farm. The microphones were hidden inside the chicken coops and leave them overnight until the next morning. The sounds captured are unique and hard to get with the presence of humans around.
You will find different Rooster and Hen sounds when they do different actions. Some of them are sleeping, snoring, getting scared, chasing themself, Jumping around, Flapping their wings, Waking up, and many more.
Great library to develop Animal personalities and implement sound design technics to develop Creatures.
61 HD quad surround ambiences of the wild North European nature. Recorded during a two-week recording trip on foot and by rowing boat in the hot July of 2018 at the heart of the national park in Karelia, North-Western Russia. Spacious, transparent, immersive and absolutely free from any technogenic and anthropogenic sounds. Still air and wind through grass or trees. Birds and insects from single and sparse at the cloudy morning to dense and busy at the hot sunny noon, a mosquito chorus at dawn and ear-piercing grasshoppers at sunset. Distant thunder rolls and disturbed Arctic Loon, huge old trees creaking and grumbling in the wind.
10 % of the library’s revenue goes to nature preserves and animal shelters.
RESIDENTIAL SEAGULLS features 18 stereo tracks of seagulls in a residential area. All recordings have been taken from backyards where the city noise is very close to zero.
Key Points:
High-quality nature ambience of wild landscapes in eastern Oregon – with a focus on bird sounds in the high desert across times of day and seasons. These are authentic western desert sounds appropriate for use in westerns, wild west, and related games and films.
Many tracks are quite long – several minutes or longer. Species include woodpeckers, meadowlarks, woodpeckers, distant owls, and more. Includes bonus clips of fly buzzes and a few bats. A number catch birds quite close to the recorder.
Humaninal Mimicry is a handy collection of human vocalizations mimicking the sound of animals.
These naturally-sounding samples are useful for shaping expressive creature sounds.
Tens of actors were involved in the process, but also one metal singer. Recorded up to 192KHz with Sanken Co-100k, or 96KHz. Included are more than 60 various animals (imitated) such as Eagle, Koala, Tiger, Whale, Seal, Crane, Gopher, Dolphin, Elephant, Lion, Crow, Goose, Camel, Bear, Horse, Frog, Platypus, Raccoon, Seagull, Honey Badger, Squirrel, Wolf, Monkey,…
The sounds delivered are well edited and meta-tagged. These are crisp, easy, and malleable sounds that will enrich your existing collection.
Alternatively, these sounds can also be used for cartoon or comical effects.
Botswana Faunethic sound library is a unique collection of 49 sounds recorded through several national parks of the country (Okavango, Chobe,…). All these sounds has been recorded and produced with high quality equipment in multichannel.
-Bush, savanna and forest soundscapes.
-Hippopotamus grunt and vocals.
-Elephants vocals, showering and drinking.
-Zebras and impalas fighting.
-Lion chasing an elephant during one night.
-Birds and insects at different perspectives.
-Villages
If you want to hear more about this field recording trip, feel free to check this post.
The multichannel version contains 40 tracks in native 4.0 and 9 tracks recorded in stereo only.
This library provides authentic and interesting sounds, recorded with DPA, MBHO and Neumann mics powered by an Aeta 4minX.
All Faunethic tracks includes metadata carefully edited, compatible with Soundminer, Soundly and Basehead.
Over two hours of birds, crickets, cicadas and frogs primarily from Southern Ontario, Canada, but also from Britain and Costa Rica. Specific calls and ambiences from the forest, the beach, the neighbourhood or on the dock of a quiet pond. Essential sounds to bring background tracks to life.
This Parrot SFX library was recorded by our sound recordists in Thailand in 192 khz, 24-bit WAV format. It includes a huge variety of sounds from calls, cries and vocal gestures. A great resource for post-production or game audio sound design.
Looking for bird sounds? Welcome to a huge collection of bird sound effects from many (many!) types of birds from all over the world.
From individual bird chirping, bird calls and birdsong, to sounds of large flocks of birds and nature ambiences with sounds of local birds, the independent sound effects community provides you with pristine recordings for your film, documentary, game or anything else that calls for authentic bird SFX.
Many of the sound libraries are recorded at extremely high sample rates - and by pitching, stretching, layering and manipulating the bird sounds in creative ways, you'll get unique source material to design your own imagined and fantastical creature sounds from.
Chatter, chirp, coo, caw, gobble, hiss, honk, hoot, peep, quack, screech, sing, squawk, trill, tweet, warble, whistle, whoop, yodel, zee-zee-zee,
Q: What are some of the most popular bird sounds?
A: Click to sort the category by most popular bird sound effects libraries
Q: Are there any bird sound libraries on sale right now?
A: Click to sort the category by bird sound libraries on sale
Q: How do I download the bird sounds?
A: Add the sound libraries you're interested in to the cart, and complete the checkout - you can then instantly download your chosen bird SFX.
Q: Are these sounds royalty free?
A: Yes, they're royalty free, and no attribution is required
Q: Who has recorded and designed these sounds?
A: They're created by the independent sound community, and have been recorded by some of the best recordists and sound designers on the planet. There's a constant flow of brand new sound libraries coming from the community, giving you the absolutely freshest sound effects available anywhere. Oh, and by getting sounds from the community, you support individual sound designers and sound recordists – that’s a pretty cool thing too.
A while back we stayed at an AirBNB near Joshua Tree National Park. The hosts set up a bird feeder right outside the porch which inevitably drew what seemed to be the entirety of the region’s wildlife to our doorstep, including a bobcat and some coyotes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any sound from the bobcat, and only mediocre recordings from the coyotes, but the Gambel’s Quails stole the spotlight and gave us a lot of interesting and goofy sounding bird calls to listen to. The atmosphere the birds created was so interesting to us that we spent countless hours listening, taking photos and recording them.
Experience the distinctive call of the Laughing Kookaburra with this meticulously crafted sound library, offering 30 high-quality audio tracks, each with multiple variations to suit the needs of any project.
Organized for seamless use
Recordings are uniformly labeled to ensure effortless integration into your workflow, allowing for easy selection, combination, or swapping of takes based on your creative vision.
Accurate recording with professional equipment
Captured at an intimate distance of just 20cm, these recordings deliver unparalleled clarity and detail.
Equipment used is as follows:
– Sennheiser MKH 8050: For direct, natural sound capture.
– Sanken CO-100K: Ideal for capturing ultrasonic frequencies.
– Zoom F6: Professional audio recorder that allows recording at 192Khz.
– Zoom H6: For capturing a stereo recording.
Ultrasonic capture ensures that even when sounds are pitched down, their depth and frequency richness is preserved, making them perfect for designing fantastical creatures or unique soundscapes.
Professional Standards & Quality
– Resolution: Recorded at 24-bit/192kHz and delivered at 96kHz/24-bit.
– Editing: Tracks have been carefully cleaned of external noises such as distant birds, wind, footsteps or human activity, ensuring a pristine, professional-quality product ready for immediate use.
With The Animal Symphony: Laughing Kookaburra, you’ll have access to a versatile, perfect for enhancing any audiovisual project or creative endeavour.
Ideal applications:
– Video games: Add realism and depth to the natural environments of your games.
– Cinema and Documentaries: Enrichment of the audiovisual product with authentic sounds.
– Educational Applications: Use these sounds in educational projects to teach about wildlife and animal behavior.
– Multimedia Projects: Ideal for any project that seeks to enrich the user’s listening experience.
Technical details:
– Total audios: 30 (544 aprox Individually)
– Format: 192kHz – 96kHz/24bit
– Equipment used: Zoom F6 recorder with Sennheiser MKH 8050 microphone and Sanken CO-100K microphone, as well as a Zoom H6 recorder for stereo.
– Duration: 04:44
The Audio Hero Birds collection features 45 professionally recorded sound effects, ready for use in your productions. Included in this library are Loons, Falcons, Flamingos, Peacocks, Woodpeckers, Nightingales, Robins, Ravens, Parrots and much more! These sounds are all hand-picked from the Sound Ideas Just Birds and Animals, Wild World of Animals, International, Series 1000, Series 2000 and Series 6000 libraries.
The Exotic Birds sound effects library is a unique collection of 24 different species of exotic birds. It features birds like flamingos, parrots, parakeets, crane, crow, ibis, peacock, and many others.
Bali mynah • Black headed ibis • Canada goose • Chilean Lapwings • Collared parakeet • Crows • Grey parrots • Grey winged trumpeter • Guira Cuckoo • Indian peacock • Kookaburra • Little bustard • Macaw parrot • Moorhen • Palm nut vulture • Paradise crane • Parakeet mouse • Red breasted goose • Red flamingos • Senegal parrots • Southern screamer • Superb starling • White naped crane
With A Sound Effect, Asbjoern has created a web site where our international community can browse, learn, and share the vast fruits of our labors. Together we are accelerating the very real potential power of sound design as a recognized art form.
A Sound Effect is an excellent resource for us to keep our animated films sounding unique and exciting.
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We found the site very easy to navigate, purchasing and downloads were effortless and the effects themselves are awesome! Asbjoern has done us all a great service.
We’ll definitely be back!
There are many great independent sound effect libraries available these days. The main problem with having so many, is keeping track of them!
A Sound Effect is a great hub, and is one of the first places I visit to look for sounds by category or genre. I started coming here to see if I could find libraries that I knew I had heard, but forgot WHERE I had heard them.
And in the process discovered libraries I never would have found otherwise. Great work! Keep it up!
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