Xeno-canto - Bird sounds from around the world with annotations

Occurrence
Latest version published by Naturalis Biodiversity Center on Feb 26, 2026 Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Publication date:
26 February 2026
License:
CC-BY-NC 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 857,858 records in English (136 MB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (8 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (8 KB)

Description

This dataset covers the sounds of the Bird sound collection of Xeno-canto (XC). XC is an online database that provides access to sound recordings of wildlife from around the world. The recordings are shared by a growing community of thousands of recordists from around the world, amateurs and professionals alike. The aim of Xeno-canto is to eventually represent sounds of all animals, meaning of all taxa, to subspecies level, of their complete repertoire, with all of the geographic variability, at all stages of development.The website of Xeno-canto (xeno-canto.org) was launched in 2005, and initially focussed on Neotropical birds. The scope of Xeno-canto is gradually widening. XC is run by the Xeno-canto Foundation for Nature Sounds in The Netherlands, with support from Naturalis Biodiversity Center. Please note that the Bird sound dataset shared on GBIF is a subset of the entire collection that is available on https://xeno-canto.org/?gid=1. Only the recordings by recordists who have given their permission to share recording metadata with GBIF are shared here.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 857,858 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Occurrence (core)
857858
Multimedia 
2573575

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Naturalis Biodiversity Center. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3e6e6393-d9b5-4799-9f00-014e6e2c8c29.  Naturalis Biodiversity Center publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility.

Keywords

aves, birds, bird sounds; occurrence; Observation; Occurrence

Contacts

Willem-Pier Vellinga
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
  • Chair
Xeno-canto Foundation for Nature Sounds
Jeroen Creuwels
  • Processor
  • Data manager
NLBIF
  • P.O. Box 9517
NL-2300 RA Leiden
NL

Geographic Coverage

Global

Bounding Coordinates South West [-90, -180], North East [90, 180]

Taxonomic Coverage

Birds, with taxonomy based on IOC World Bird List.

Class Aves (Birds)

Temporal Coverage

Formation Period 1900-current

Sampling Methods

No Description available

Quality Control Identifications of sounds on recordings are subject to continuous review by the Xeno-canto community. This means that current identifications can always later be challenged/questioned. The current identification status (either "not questioned", "questioned" or "questioned and resolved" is shown on xeno-canto.org). Currently questioned recordings are not shared with GBIF.

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Vellinga, W.P. & R. Planqué (2015). CLEF2015 Working Notes, CEUR Workshop proceedings Vol-1391.
  2. Vellinga, W.P., B. Planqué, S. Pieterse & J. Jongsma (2017). www.xeno-canto.org: a decade on. Neotropical Birding 21: 40-47.

Additional Metadata