I've seen something similar on a laptop that capture the ultrasonic calls of bats and identified them, but this is smaller and far cheaper. I don't want one, mind you, I just think it's cool.
When the Song Sounds Familiar, but You Can't Place the Singer - New York Times.
The Song Sleuth is about the size of a large pair of binoculars, but lighter, at just over a pound with batteries. This device picks up bird songs with a directional microphone array, compares them with digitized songs from the birds of your region in the continental United States and lists the most likely singers on a small display.
Software with the device covers the 60 most common birds in the user's region, with modules for 13 other regions in the country that are downloadable for $25 each, all based on bird song recordings from the Macaulay Library of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
















