Whether you’re up with the lark, bright and shining early in the morning or a night owl, now you can be eased from your gentle slumber into a bright new day by the sweet music of bird songs on your smartphone.
Dawn’s Chorus is a bird alarm clock developed by Carnegie Museum of Natural History and its design lab The Studio.
This artfully designed free smartphone app is a calming, nature-inspired alternative to your usual
blaring alarm. When the alarm goes off, birds begin to appear in trees to create a chorus of song.
Hear randomly selected birds each morning.
Or choose from 20 birds native to the northeastern United States to create a custom alarm whose songs play in the order you choose at whatever time you set.
As the melodies gently wake you, the app displays softly painted renditions of the birds by Sam Ticknor, an artist with The Studio.
Ashley Cecil, Carnegie’s 2016 artist-in-residence, created the accompanying flower designs.
Learn Birds Calls As You Wake
If you’re a new bird watcher, the alarm clock is an excellent learning tool. Users can customize alarms to mix specific bird calls they want to learn.
Wake up with to the Song Sparrow’s Madge-Madge-Madge, put-on-your-tea-kettle-ettle-ettle.
The Magnolia Warbler’s whistly weta-weta-weta.
Or the White Warbler’s monotonous squeaky wheelbarrow weesy-weesy-weesy-weesy.
Get the Dawn Chorus Smartphone App
Get the app to hear all the other delightful bird songs.
The app also offers descriptions of each bird, along with information about the museum.
And BirdSafe Pittsburgh, a joint project of Carnegie and the American Bird Conservancy that works to study and reduce bird-glass collisions.
The only con is that Dawn Chorus does not sound when your phone is in silent mode.
So if you’re a light sleeper and don’t want to endure the ping sounds of texts or phone calls, this app might not be for you.
But for the rest of us, we can now wake up to the bird songs we choose, and on our schedule.
Download Dawn Chorus for free from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.