# Biophony: Wildlife Survey Log — Bioacoustics field lab > Bioacoustics field lab (iPhone/iPad app by Robert Corbin.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/biophony-wildlife-survey-log/id6792598547 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Robert Corbin](https://appshunter.io/developer/1890247992) - Category: Music, Education - Price: $3.99 - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 52 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-07-29 - Data updated: 2026-11-10 ## What is Biophony? Biophony turns your iPhone or iPad into a pocket bioacoustics field lab: record wildlife with a live spectrogram, schedule dawn-chorus sessions, import files from other recorders, box calls on the spectrogram, measure the soundscape with standard acoustic indices, keep point-count survey tallies with diversity statistics, and export everything in formats researchers already use. Everything runs on the device. NEW IN 4.0 - Survey counts: log a count with each detection, add one more with a single tap, and pick labels from your earlier entries or the reference library. - Diversity and effort summary: labels (S), Shannon H′, Pielou evenness, Gini–Simpson, Simpson’s unbiased index, inverse Simpson and exp(H′) for all visits or one site, with listening time, individuals per hour, counts by label and a label accumulation chart. Computed from what you logged; Biophony does not identify species. - Notebook backup and restore: save the Survey Notebook as a JSON file and restore it later. Restoring only adds visits and never overwrites existing ones. - Visit pages with counts, entries and per-visit diversity. - Acoustic entropy now uses the Hilbert amplitude envelope for Ht, as defined by Sueur et al. (2008) and seewave. Results saved by earlier versions are labelled until you recompute them. - Reference names updated: bird names follow the eBird/Clements 2026 taxonomy (for example Eurasian Blackbird, Diederik Cuckoo, Rufous-naped Lark now in Corypha); amphibian and insect names were checked against GBIF and the Catalogue of Life. RECORD 24-bit PCM WAV at your device’s full sample rate in measurement mode, with pre-roll (up to 10 seconds before you tap Record), live markers, an input meter and a storage estimate. If a call or alarm interrupts a recording, the audio captured so far is saved. SCHEDULE Record on a duty cycle (for example 1 minute every 10 minutes, up to 288 times), starting now, at a set time, or before or after local sunrise or sunset calculated on the device. The schedule keeps running with the screen locked; force-quitting the app or a phone call ends it, and finished files are kept. IMPORT AND ANNOTATE Bring in WAV, AIFF, M4A, MP3 or FLAC files; embedded GUANO metadata, recorder comments and date-time file names set the recording time and location. Drag time–frequency boxes around calls, label them, play just that selection and read peak frequency and level. Export a selection table or label track. ACOUSTIC INDICES ACI, ADI, AEI, BI, NDSI and acoustic entropy (H), computed segment by segment for recordings of any length with published default parameters, a timeline chart and a long-term spectral average. Indices are relative: compare recordings made with the same device and settings. SOUNDSCAPE COMPOSITION An optional breakdown into biophony, geophony and anthrophony using Apple’s built-in on-device sound classifier. These are coarse, general sound classes, not species identification, and they can be wrong. REFERENCE LIBRARY AND COMPARISON 83 openly licensed bird, amphibian and insect recordings, each credited in the app. Compare two clips side by side; “Match this window” ranks the library by spectral similarity to guide your own judgement. Biophony does not claim to identify species. EXPORT Research-package ZIP per recording (audio with GUANO metadata, selection table, label track, indices and soundscape CSVs, metadata and a README), Field Log CSV, Survey Notebook CSV, summary CSV and JSON backup. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no subscription, no ads, no analytics. Works offline. Recordings, notes and any optional location stay on your device unless you export them. Pay once; everything is included. ABOUT THE DATA Bundled reference recordings come from Wikimedia Commons under CC0, CC BY and public-domain terms; every author and licence is listed in About. The screenshots show sample recordings and visits that the app builds from those bundled clips; they are labelled as samples. ## Is Biophony safe? Not enough ratings yet to assess Biophony. ## Is Biophony legit? Biophony: Wildlife Survey Log appears legitimate, with a few gaps. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Biophony is 65 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 4.0 — 2026-11-09 Biophony 4.0 - Survey Notebook counts: log how many you heard with each entry, add one more with a tap, and reuse earlier labels or reference-library names. - Diversity and effort summary: richness, Shannon H′, Pielou evenness, Simpson indices and exp(H′), listening time, individuals per hour, counts by label and a label accumulation chart, for all visits or one site. - Notebook backup to a JSON file and restore that only adds visits, never overwrites. - Visit pages with counts, entries and per-visit diversity; durations in minutes. - Acoustic entropy Ht now uses the Hilbert envelope (Sueur et al. 2008). Older saved results are labelled until recomputed. - Bird names updated to eBird/Clements 2026; amphibian and insect names checked against GBIF and the Catalogue of Life. - Fixes: sample-rate labels such as 44.1 kHz, singular and plural counts, and sample data in screenshots is clearly marked. ### 3.0.3 — 2026-10-07 Small improvements and fixes. ### 3.0.2 — 2026-10-05 Added App Store listings in more languages. No changes to the app itself. ### 3.0.1 — 2026-10-02 A clearer App Store name and search details. No other changes in this update. ### 3.0 — 2026-09-28 Biophony 3.0 — the field lab upgrade - Pre-roll: keep up to 10 seconds from before you tap Record (off, 3, 5 or 10 s in the Record options). - Live markers: the flag button now marks moments while you record. - Recording schedules: duty-cycle recording (for example 1 minute every 10) from now, a set time, or around local sunrise or sunset, calculated on the device. - Import audio from other recorders (WAV, AIFF, M4A, MP3, FLAC). GUANO metadata, recorder comments and date-time file names set the time and location. - Box annotations on the spectrogram with labels, selection playback and peak-frequency measurements; export a selection table or label track. - Acoustic indices (ACI, ADI, AEI, BI, NDSI, H) per segment for recordings of any length, with a timeline chart and long-term spectral average. - Soundscape composition: biophony, geophony and anthrophony shares and tappable sound events from Apple's built-in on-device classifier (general sound classes, not species ID). - Research package export: audio with GUANO metadata, selections, labels, indices, soundscape events, metadata and a README in one ZIP. - Spectrogram settings (FFT size, window, dynamic range, top frequency) and 30-second paging through long recordings. - Field Log search, sort, filters, delete confirmation, rename, and a whole-log CSV export. - "Start a field recording" shortcut for Siri and the Shortcuts app. - Recordings interrupted by a call are now saved, a location fix can no longer hold up saving, and one damaged Field Log entry no longer hides the others. ## More apps by Robert Corbin - [Daily Word Journey](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/daily-word-journey/id6761548266) - [Hush Secret Text: Encryption](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hush-secret-text-encryption/id6761658175) - [Renew Guard](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/renew-guard/id6761755447) - [Receipt to PDF: Expense Report](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/receipt-to-pdf-expense-report/id6761782025) - [Route Your Pay: Mileage Log](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/route-your-pay-mileage-log/id6761783719) - [Tip Arbiter: Tip Calculator](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/tip-arbiter-tip-calculator/id6761786879) All apps by Robert Corbin: https://appshunter.io/developer/1890247992 ## Related topics [wildlife acoustics](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/wildlife-acoustics) --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-11-10.*