A Nature Methods article presents an automated method for identifying individual birds by song, enabling multi-year recapture from passive acoustic monitoring data. The references cited in the article body discuss passive acoustic monitoring across realms and its use for multi-taxa conservation assessment and prioritisation over large scales and for rare and cryptic species; acoustic monitoring in terrestrial environments using microphone arrays; passive acoustic monitoring in terrestrial vertebrates; emerging opportunities and challenges for passive acoustics in ecological assessment and monitoring; terrestrial passive acoustic monitoring; computational bioacoustics with deep learning; individual and self-recognition in birds; individual vocal recognition across taxa; individual identification in acoustic recordings; the role of vocal individuality in conservation; acoustic censusing using automatic vocalization classification and identity recognition; vocal individuality as a census tool; and individuality in corncrake Crex crex vocalizations.