Hi there, sorry I posted above before I saw your comment but I should have posted here. You're describing something very like my bird ID challenge! https://trogon.onrender.com/
Re the first part of what you say, rather than writing any software how about play tree.fm on our laptops and stick our phone down next to it with Merlin? That'll take about 1 minute to set up and is free!
Re the first part of what you say, rather than writing any software how about play tree.fm on our laptops and stick our phone down next to it with Merlin? That'll take about 1 minute to set up and is free!