I will (try to) be a little polemical here.

> in three years wait, although I do like the idea of your song recognition
> program (I believe such things are currently available but are still
> in the research phase and are prohibitively expensive), you could simply

Although being a computer scientist myself, I am not really excited by the idea
of every birder having a song recognition computer with her/him in the field.

Some people, more interested on adding things to their list (I am sure readers
of "tweeters" are not like that :-)) than really studying birds' behavior
and/or identification, would just tick items on their list, and then go to
another place.
Well, of course, I am a little extremist here :-)

Anyway, it is undeniable that such programs would be really useful in some
circumstances, for example night census for migratory birds.

And where would the pleasure of going in the field be if the computer did the
job itself ?

Good eye and ear birding !
^^^

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A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA