A different kind of morning.
I don’t think many people know yet
that birdsong alone can wake you this gently.
Download on the App Store — free, and no ads.
Waking to birdsong
Real birdsong, recorded by hand in the mountains of Gifu, in central Japan.
It begins at a volume you can barely hear, and over about 15 minutes, the morning arrives.
Not being startled awake
A loud sound pulls you out of sleep wherever you happen to be. This one doesn’t.
While you are sleeping deeply, a quiet sound will not wake you. As your sleep grows lighter, you begin to notice it. At the end, a Japanese bush warbler calls, clearly.
In the forest, from the moment you lie down
To fall asleep to, you can choose a forest at midnight, a night of rain, or a night of bell crickets.
Each plays very quietly, all night. You can turn the screen off and leave the phone locked.
For the mornings you don’t wake up
There is a backup, for when the quiet sound isn’t enough.
About 15 minutes in, the bush warbler calls clearly. And if the app itself could not produce sound at all — it was force-quit, or the media volume was at 0% — your iPhone’s own alarm rings instead, with vibration. If the warbler did sound, that backup is cancelled by itself.
On the days of the week you choose, the iPhone alarm will also wake you on a morning you forgot to press “Good night”.
Your mornings, written down
What time it began ringing, and how many minutes until you got up. Which sound you woke to most easily. Your waking time by day of the week, how it sits against sunrise, how long you spent in bed.
All of it stays inside your iPhone. None of it is ever sent anywhere.
Last Night’s Sounds
A thought that comes at two in the morning is gone by breakfast. Turning on a light to write it down wakes you up. So you say one sentence out loud, with your eyes closed. Say it clearly, and you can read it as text in the morning.
Between “Good night” and morning, the app records a short clip only when a sound is clearly louder than the room’s usual quiet. You can listen back in the morning. Recordings are kept inside this iPhone only.
More about Last Night’s Sounds
Season Bookmarks
On the night you tap “Good night”, that day’s card from the seventy-two micro-seasons becomes yours. Seventy-two in a year.
Each card carries the season’s name, its reading, its meaning, the larger solar term, and that night’s moon. The moon is not a drawing prepared in advance; its shape is calculated from the real moon of that night.
Listen
You can hear the actual recordings, made in the mountains of Gifu.
The person who recorded these voices
A farmer in the mountains of Gifu, Japan.
About ten years ago he found a place he calls the forest of small birds. He wanted to bring the air of that forest home with him — so he bought equipment that records the high frequencies a phone cannot reach, built wooden boxes and left them out in the hills overnight, and stood still among the trees for ten minutes at a time so that his own footsteps would not be recorded.
More than a hundred recording sessions, so far.
About the recordist · The sounds of the forest
Free to use
There are no ads.
- Japanese, English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Korean and Chinese (Traditional)
- For iPhone, iOS 26.5 or later
- At night, keep the phone charging, beside your pillow. 70–80% device volume is a good place to start
This app is not a medical device, and it does not promise to improve your sleep or your health.
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From the mountains of Gifu — may your morning begin with these voices.
Akito Haga