Finished! Looks like this project is out of data at the moment!
Thank you for completing the first batch of recordings! We're back with new recordings to further refine the analysis. If you have a moment, please also complete our evaluation to inform future projects. Thanks team!
Tune in to your streets! Identify what you hear in audio clips to assist in research about how road noise is impacting UK wildlife.
Learn moreYou can do real research by clicking to get started here!
Zooniverse Talk
Chat with the research team and other volunteers!
FlyTunes Statistics
View more statsKeep track of the progress you and your fellow volunteers have made on this project.
Every click counts! Join FlyTunes's community to complete this project and help researchers produce important results. Click "View more stats" to see even more stats.
By the numbers
Message from the researcher
Amidst global biodiversity decline, I'm developing algorithms to monitor wildlife through acoustic sensors. FlyTunes presents a collection of audio clips recorded by citizen scientists in the UK. By identifying sounds in these recordings, your contributions will aid in training algorithms to identify wildlife through their sounds, allowing us to explore the impact of road noise on biodiversity.
FlyTunesAbout FlyTunes
Humans are noisy. In cities and towns, our cars, trains, planes, footsteps, and voices all add up to a constant hum of noise and activity. Amidst this human-made soundtrack lies a concealed world of natural sounds - the calls of insects, birds, and other wildlife.
Researchers at the Natural History Museum aim to use recordings from roadsides across the UK to monitor biodiversity and study the impact of road noise on wildlife. As part of the Museum’s Urban Nature Project, community scientists contribute by collecting five-minute audio clips through the Nature Overheard survey.
Join us to unveil the hidden soundscape by listening to short excerpts of these recordings. Your task is to identify the subtle sounds of vehicle hums, human-made sounds and animal chatter within the ambient noise. The background noise will be difficult to categorise, and there will be instances where there are no other distinct sounds. This emphasises the need for a collective effort from the Zooniverse community to carefully work through the files and uncover the hidden sounds.
No need to distinguish between similar sounds - we'll give you categories. You can listen to each clip multiple times, select multiple options, or admit when the sound stumps you. Each clip gets reviewed by multiple listeners. Join in and explore the hidden sounds within the everyday familiar noise!