9 ms·

BirdNET-Pi: Automated, locally run bird sound identification and tracking

468 points by superkuh 5y ago

Digory 5y ago
Fun! What kind of microphone are they using on these installations? In most of the US, I presume you could get a 6-12W solar panel to run a Raspberry Pi Zero basically uninterrupted in your yard.
- pedrogpimenta 5y ago
  I'm also interested in what microphone would work best for this project, which I absolutely will install on an unused Pi :)
- SpikedCola 5y ago
  There are some mic suggestions discussed on the github page[0]. [0] https://github.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi/discussions/39 https://github.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi/discussions/39
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Now if ever I wanted to spy on the neighbours whilst not spying on the neighbours, this is it! LOL
codingdave 5y ago
This looks terrific - I live next to a forest and have so many birds here, I was thinking of building such a tool myself. I'm definitely going to set some time aside in the next week or so to try this out.
smackay 5y ago
It would be very cool to have network of these listening to calls while birds are migrating at night. With a large enough network you'd get an amazing way to visualise large scale movements which are generally completely invisible. Wiring up the eastern seaboard around Massachusetts, southern Spain, the vast steppes around the Caspian Sea or pretty much anywhere else would be incredible.
- tony_cannistra 5y ago
  Believe it or not, we already have a technology for nighttime bird migration monitoring: weather radar. https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/ https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/
  - closedloop129 5y ago
    Radar for Europe: https://eurobirdportal.org/ https://eurobirdportal.org/ This is made to compare two birds and their migration pattern over the last year. Birds seem to have different radar signatures so that there is a different pattern for each bird.
    - mycowerk 5y ago
      Very cool! I wonder how unique the signatures are and whether this can scale to smaller flocks.
    - b112 5y ago
      I can't find a single place, on that site, which mentions radar. Instead, it talks about data from partners, sources, etc., and even mentions some of them as manual counts, overlapping, etc. It just looks radar-ish, but is not.
- ses4j 5y ago
  BirdNET isn't tuned particularly for nocturnal flight calls (NFCs). But a network of listening stations with automated identification exists and is improving rapidly. Vesper (https://github.com/HaroldMills/Vesper https://github.com/HaroldMills/Vesper) is one open-source project. Terra (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theterraproject/listen-to-birds-and-wildlife-build-a-new-conservation-tool/posts/3443101?ref=ksr_email_backer_project_update_registered_users https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theterraproject/listen-...) is also related.
russellbeattie 5y ago
Ooh! I have a mockingbird in my yard that I can try this on! I counted 20 different songs the other night, and it was probably a lot more, I just stopped being able to distinguish. They can have a repertoire of over 200! I was actually wondering if something like this project existed, or maybe just an app really, but then hadn't thought about it since (I'm just an insomniac, not a bird watcher). Very cool. If you don't know about the North American mockingbird, they fly up to a high perch at night and claim a yard sized area of territory by reciting all the songs it knows, as loud as it can. Over and over again, until it is exhausted. The little psychos. Thus impressing all the lady mockingbirds in the area. Apparently they do a little dance as well, but given it's usually the middle of the night when this happens, I haven't seen it. They used to drive me nuts until I read up on them. Now I try to count how many songs they know.
- ctoth 5y ago
  Now I am convinced that Mockingbirds are merely bird repeaters helping move messages through a bird network.
  - dtgriscom 5y ago
    Playing telephone via bird call. In one end as a song sparrow, out the other end as a Great Blue Heron.
- ses4j 5y ago
  Merlin is the most widely-used audio recognition app. It's amazing, try it out. BirdNET is another project (also affiliated with Cornell) that works in a similar way. This project is about locally installing BirdNET.
- thefourthchime 5y ago
  You should try the app. it's great!
- gs17 5y ago
  For me, the app version is able to detect mockingbirds (and the similar mimicking Brown Thrasher) as themselves most of the time. I'm honestly impressed it can do it at all for their songs on small samples.
kingsloi 5y ago
Awesome! I've been eyeing up a Vizycam (https://vizycam.com https://vizycam.com) to do bird identification but via visual recognition. Sounds like this would be a great addition and would pair nicely with the Vizycam, both run on Pis, too!
- mrbombastic 5y ago
  You may be aware of this in same space, they have delayed for quite a while but apparently just started production: https://mybirdbuddy.com https://mybirdbuddy.com
techterrier 5y ago
BirdNET is ace, looking foward to building it into our app...Birda[0] (Strava for birdwatching). We are hiring too if any nature loving engineers want to work in conservation - dom@birda.org (need to be able to get to London once a fortnight) https://birda.org/ https://birda.org/
- rlf_dev 5y ago
  Hey, you guys are looking to implement BirdNET into iOS ? If so I have no problem sharing the code I'm using in a small app I made using BirdNET-Lite (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bird-sound-identifier/id1541890005 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bird-sound-identifier/id154189...)
  - techterrier 5y ago
    that's great! I'll drop you an email
  - WelcomeShorty 5y ago
    Cool. Bought it and much to my surprise, it worked. Surprised since I live in a city, construction going on, motorcycles passing and still: it detected my beloved house sparrows :) Will give it a shot later tonight when the noise pollution dies down and the birds get going.
    - rlf_dev 5y ago
      Thanks ! I'm now in the process of updating to the new 2022 model.
- Aaronstotle 5y ago
  I love hackernews because I come here to procrastinate and end in rabbit holes (was looking at getting a raspberry pi for this project), and now I found about this app! I use strava all the time so that's a great description
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  App Store says Birda isn't available in my country or region. (USA). Hmm.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
So cool. I just joined the Arizona Audubon Society a month ago and I go out with birding groups a couple of times a week, really fun activity!
gkfasdfasdf 5y ago
10s of dollars idea: add as a feature to outdoor nest cams.
mongol 5y ago
Birdwatching is so rewarding, I can really recommend it. It feels Real (TM) to go out and watch what happens in nature, live, with your own eyes. You get out, visit new places, practise your senses in ways you don't do otherwise, and are rewarded with new experiences.
shon 5y ago
Thank you, super cool.
lesgobrandon 5y ago
low_tech_love 5y ago
That is, assuming birds are real...?
- rolobio 5y ago
  Am I the only one who has gotten very tired of this meme? I laughed at a few of them, but now its just everywhere it seems.
  - millzlane 5y ago
    Why do you think Cornell invested so much money in this program?
  - UberFly 5y ago
    It's a five-year old meme at this point and yea they all get old almost immediately.
  - kej 5y ago
    As an aside, there was interesting piece with the Birds Aren't Real creator recently, where he steps out of character and talks about his accidental satire fits into the wider field of conspiracy theories: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/14/the-lunacy-is-getting-more-intense-how-birds-arent-real-took-on-the-conspiracy-theorists https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/14/the-lunacy-i...
- nullc 5y ago
  Clearly this software is actually for tracking the varrious surveillance drones that are disguised as "birds", it's just easier to distribute if they play along with the ruse. Checkout the logo of the software-- they're clearly saying that birds are mechanical. :P
gotaquestion 5y ago
This is so awesome. I tried to write something like this in 2007 (I called it "Tweeter") but the state of embedded hardware for makers back then was a bit more challenging so it was all PC based. I tried simple spectrogram correlation by sliding a window and comparing low-precision spectra, but I don't know enough about DSP so it never worked. Glad to see it is finally a reality.
frodprefect 5y ago
Similar to AudioMoth https://www.openacousticdevices.info/ https://www.openacousticdevices.info/
gadders 5y ago
BirdNet is a great app.
jcpst 5y ago
Loving these turn-key Pi projects showing up on HN today.
- formerkrogemp 5y ago
  They are quite lovely.
- deleted 5y ago
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mankyd 5y ago
Weird caveat, but I wonder about the legality of this in various jurisdictions. In my own state in the US, it is generally illegal to record audio without consent. There are various interpretations of this, and probably putting a sign up saying "audio recording in progress" is enough, but it's worth considering. To be clear, even private, indoor security cameras are not allowed to record audio in my state, though few people realize this. Security camera websites and software do nothing to make this obvious.
- nullc 5y ago
  Even then, you'd still need someone to bring an action. No one is going to bring an action over a private bird monitor. It might be nice though if the "live audio" detected human voices and auto-muted them. If you're making a live audio feed available you should post a notice for sure.
  - mankyd 5y ago
    Yup. I myself get along fine with my neighbors and wouldn't be concerned, per se. I simply think folks should be aware. There's plenty of lawsuits in my state regarding "illegal wiretapping" and not everyone has good relationships with their neighbors.
- nick238 5y ago
  Those laws are usually about eavesdropping, and most states (e.g. my state of Illinois) have carveouts for a "reasonable expectation of privacy" (though I found something saying Montana doesn't?). Recording people inside an Illinois hotel room, felony eavesdropping. Recording audio in the hotel lobby, irrelevant. I think you'd have an extremely uphill battle that says a mic outside was "knowingly and intentionally" used to eavesdrop. You would then also need to demonstrate one of: 1. it was done purposefully to eavesdrop (no, it was meant to record birds) 2. it was done to record/transmit/overhear the conversation 3. even if inadvertent, someone used/disclosed anything in the private conversation heard If all the audio is getting processed to be maybe this or that bird, and the raw feed isn't stored, let alone rehosted, I don't think there's an issue.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
Does anyone know if it can detect when someone is using a birdsong app? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-22863383 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-22863383 Serious question because some birds mimic sounds like mobile ring tones so I didnt know if some birds also pick human accents? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-16154490 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-16154490
martini333 5y ago
Ahh yes, let me just run curl ... | bash
- scubbo 5y ago
  If you're savvy enough to know why that's potentially dangerous, you're savvy enough to pipe to an intermediate executable file to inspect the code.
  - noja 5y ago
    If you're technical enough to answer that, then you're technical enough to know that security by default is better.
    - scubbo 5y ago
      No, I'm sorry, I seriously don't understand how that applies in this case. How is "trusting the content you get from `apt-get`/`dpkg`/`pacman`" safer than curling-to-bash? In both cases, you are downloading and installing content from a trusted source (assuming you are curling via https to avoid MITMs). In the curl-to-bash case, you have the _ability_ to at least inspect the code first before you install it (though, realistically, how many folks would really have the dedication and the ability to do so?), whereas with package managers you're installing "blind". Doesn't that make curling-to-bash the _safer_ option? I clearly must be missing something, here, because everyone decries "curling-to-bash" as a bad security practice, but I haven't seen an explanation of _why_. I tried doing some research for myself - this page[1] suggests that package managers have built-in checksumming and signature verification, but then goes on to propose an attack vector where the load balancer is compromised, so (presumably?) those same checksums/signatures could also be intercepted and faked. This gist[2] has a lot of people speaking against it, but from following those links, the only downside I could see was here[3], pointing out that the shell will keep executing if a connection closes mid-stream - which, yes, is certainly a bad thing and a good argument to use package managers, but not what I would call a security concern (unless you don't trust the entity on the other end of the stream - and, again, I'm taking that as a prerequisite both for `curl | bash` and for using package managers). This[4] demonstrates that a server can detect `curl | bash` and render differently - but, again, if you trust the entity at the other end, that's not an issue. This is a genuine question, not a fight - you clearly know more about this than me, so I'm asking for your perspective, not challenging you. I recognize that there are non-security flaws to `curl | bash` (handling updates, handling unreliable connections), but I don't see how it's a security concern. How would a malicious attacker exploit someone doing a `curl | bash` from a trusted location over https? [1] https://sysdig.com/blog/friends-dont-let-friends-curl-bash/ https://sysdig.com/blog/friends-dont-let-friends-curl-bash/ [2] https://gist.github.com/btm/6700524 https://gist.github.com/btm/6700524 [3] https://www.seancassidy.me/dont-pipe-to-your-shell.html https://www.seancassidy.me/dont-pipe-to-your-shell.html [4] https://www.idontplaydarts.com/2016/04/detecting-curl-pipe-bash-server-side/ https://www.idontplaydarts.com/2016/04/detecting-curl-pipe-b...
mycowerk 5y ago
BirdNET and Pl@ntNet have to be my favorite uses of AI to date. A true use of technology for the greater good. I've actually been thinking about automated bird recognition for a while now, I live underneath a flight corridor for migrating common cranes (near Berlin). I'd love to be able to one day track their migration across the continent in real time using data from crowdsourced base stations. I wonder if migrating birds could be identified in flight using optical/radar/audio. If anybody else has had similar ideas I'd really love to chat on this topic.
- shellfishgene 5y ago
  The iNaturalist app is also quite amazing for identification of all kinds of organisms by image. The also have the "Seek" app which identifies species even offline.
  - nanidin 5y ago
    The Seek app is one of those things that you can show people and they think it is magic, even in this day and age. I got my mom and my grandma using it!
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    I use both apps, they’re pretty amazing. I typically use Seek first and if it can’t identify the image it lets you upload it to iNaturalist seamlessly for manual identification. I believe then those identifications are then used to further train the model.
- TheaomBen 5y ago
  I've been toying around with photogrammetrically matching in-flight bird silhouettes in order to have a plantnetlike bird classifier. Very much in the data acquisition stage but I'm seeing moderate success in clustering images by bird shape so far. In between other photogrammetry work I'm starting to think about how to use colour information and reading up on how to select and train a ML model for this problem.
  - 5y ago
mickhead23 5y ago
Cool. I can get behind a data gathering tool like this project. My problem with Merlin and Merlin-style apps is they attempt to do everything related to identification which shortchanges users because they don't teach fundamental skills.
- shellfishgene 5y ago
  I don't think I agree, I was just on holiday in a new country and am not a birder, but with birdnet and Merlin I learned to identify birds by song quite quickly. If not for the apps how would you even find out what bird you hear if you never see it, as happens often in dense forest?
  - mickhead23 5y ago
    A really specific scenario that might illustrate my point! App or no app, I would accept at the outset it may not be possible, or even advisable, to attempt positive identifications (by ear) of unfamiliar species in a country I've never visited, unless I were in the company of an experienced local friend or guide. Otherwise, I would concentrate on getting good quality field recordings to share when I got home. Same thing goes for birding at home..Merlin and other apps simply cannot approximate that kind of experience building, at this time.
murphyslab 5y ago
Does anyone have experience with how this deals with background noise? It appears to be analyzing audio spectra, but can it detect a birdsong against the background of a busy road or a railway nearby? I've seen and heard so many birds near where I live (red-tailed hawks, northern flickers, european starlings, magpies, finches, ...), but audio recordings of them have always been hampered by the sounds of human activity.
- rmnclmnt 5y ago
  The original paper [1] me tions data augmentation in the training dataset such as background noise addition, so it seems to be part of the initial design. As always with non-stationary noisy signal, any estimator will reach its limit to a certain point. [1] https://monarch.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A36986/attachment/ATT-0/ https://monarch.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A36986/attachment/ATT-...
jancsika 5y ago
Is this limited to detecting sounds emanating from the cheapo DACs installed in all extant birds? If so, it would be nice if they'd add a flag to analyze songs from the legacy birds heard in old recordings.
modzu 5y ago
when are they going to add translation?
- qayxc 5y ago
  Would that even work (assuming you mean the bird songs)? I'd imagine bird songs are mostly equivalent to non-verbal singing (e.g. like "la la la") combined with very general information like "I'm here, healthy and single". I really doubt there's anything in bird songs that would constitute language in the sense of verbal expression of information (not to be confused with warning calls, which could as well be specific to certain predators e.g. different calls for "snake", "raptor", or "cat").
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
Is this really capable of live 24/7 local bird sound identification? That sounds like it could have a huuuuuuge effect on all kinds of things world-wide. Imagine real-time tracking of whether bird sounds are getting fewer and fewer, or tracking real time changes in bird song around the world due to climate change, or just specific species disappearing due to environmental factors. Or being able to push back on new development that harms local bird populations by measuring a reduction in song. The possibilities are endless!
krick 5y ago
I wonder in which environment this is used. Does it handle all the noises of a typical human-populated environment well enough? Or do people only successfully use it in very remote areas?
sandgiant 5y ago
This is so great! I feel like most ML ("AI") products are just linear regressions with fancy packaging, but this actually looks super cool! I want to set this up in my summer house ASAP. Thanks for sharing.
gerdesj 5y ago
Cool. I live next to a park in Somerset, UK. The birdsong in the morning is currently near deafening. The summer house at the bottom of our garden happens to have mains power, a PoE switch and an AP. It sounds like it needs a second Pi (the other runs a TV)
beamatronic 5y ago
Looks incredible and can't wait to try it. By the way there is a broken link, I got an error when trying to go to caddyserver.com
- mholt 5y ago
  Indeed, the link should not include "www.". (We've never used that subdomain.)
frontierkodiak 5y ago
I'm working on a similar project for pollinators. We've got a bumblebee identification webapp up (https://beemachine.ai/ https://beemachine.ai/), and I'm working on a tool to automatically monitor pollination activity. Have been working on running quantized versions of my models on a Jetson Nano, and I would love to build something analogous to BirdNET-Pi if I can figure out a satisfactory camera situation for the Pi. There's a lot of exciting conservation potential in this space, but a lot of research is constrained by the expense & difficulty of getting decent sample sizes. Decentralized data collection (citizen science!) is the answer. If there's any others working on similar projects, please reach out, I'd love to chat!
CalRobert 5y ago
Thank you for sharing this!!!! I have a few acres of grazing land that I've been letting go fallow and reforesting for a few years. I've wanted to track the arrival of different species (when will the swallows get here?) etc. and do bird counts over the years, but have always been too lazy to wire this up. This will be very useful!
- fumblebee 5y ago
  A wonderful and colourful book on the subject of rewilding is: Wilding by Isabella Tree [1]. It's made me really want to do what you, she, and her husband, have done, though unfortunately my dank city flat lacks the sufficient acreage. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38891828-wilding https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38891828-wilding
  - CalRobert 5y ago
    I've read about this person in the Guardian I think. Will have to check out the book. For what it's worth, I had a dank city flat, but moved to the place with acreage after getting tired of paying tons of rent to live near bars I could never go to after having a kid.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Well, there's another fun thing to add to the Magic Mirror. Have to find a space near the aircraft identifier widget.
EA 5y ago
I wonder if this would be a way to passively search for calls of the possibly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker; even with a small number of audio recordings in existence. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093006040/the-ivory-billed-woodpecker-is-not-extinct-researchers-claim https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093006040/the-ivory-billed-w...
pfdietz 5y ago
I have Cornell's Merlin app installed on my phone. It will recognize bird vocalizations and seems to do it rather well. Ambient noise has to be low, and if there are too many birds it doesn't work well either.
ea550ff70a 5y ago
this is awesome. will def get one of this going soon. thanks for the idea op!

468 points by superkuh 5y ago

Fun! What kind of microphone are they using on these installations? In most of the US, I presume you could get a 6-12W solar panel to run a Raspberry Pi Zero basically uninterrupted in your yard.

pedrogpimenta 5y ago
I'm also interested in what microphone would work best for this project, which I absolutely will install on an unused Pi :)
SpikedCola 5y ago
There are some mic suggestions discussed on the github page[0]. [0] https://github.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi/discussions/39 https://github.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi/discussions/39
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Now if ever I wanted to spy on the neighbours whilst not spying on the neighbours, this is it! LOL

codingdave 5y ago

This looks terrific - I live next to a forest and have so many birds here, I was thinking of building such a tool myself. I'm definitely going to set some time aside in the next week or so to try this out.

smackay 5y ago

It would be very cool to have network of these listening to calls while birds are migrating at night. With a large enough network you'd get an amazing way to visualise large scale movements which are generally completely invisible. Wiring up the eastern seaboard around Massachusetts, southern Spain, the vast steppes around the Caspian Sea or pretty much anywhere else would be incredible.

tony_cannistra 5y ago
Believe it or not, we already have a technology for nighttime bird migration monitoring: weather radar. https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/ https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/
- closedloop129 5y ago
  Radar for Europe: https://eurobirdportal.org/ https://eurobirdportal.org/ This is made to compare two birds and their migration pattern over the last year. Birds seem to have different radar signatures so that there is a different pattern for each bird.
  - mycowerk 5y ago
    Very cool! I wonder how unique the signatures are and whether this can scale to smaller flocks.
  - b112 5y ago
    I can't find a single place, on that site, which mentions radar. Instead, it talks about data from partners, sources, etc., and even mentions some of them as manual counts, overlapping, etc. It just looks radar-ish, but is not.
ses4j 5y ago
BirdNET isn't tuned particularly for nocturnal flight calls (NFCs). But a network of listening stations with automated identification exists and is improving rapidly. Vesper (https://github.com/HaroldMills/Vesper https://github.com/HaroldMills/Vesper) is one open-source project. Terra (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theterraproject/listen-to-birds-and-wildlife-build-a-new-conservation-tool/posts/3443101?ref=ksr_email_backer_project_update_registered_users https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theterraproject/listen-...) is also related.

russellbeattie 5y ago

Ooh! I have a mockingbird in my yard that I can try this on! I counted 20 different songs the other night, and it was probably a lot more, I just stopped being able to distinguish. They can have a repertoire of over 200! I was actually wondering if something like this project existed, or maybe just an app really, but then hadn't thought about it since (I'm just an insomniac, not a bird watcher). Very cool. If you don't know about the North American mockingbird, they fly up to a high perch at night and claim a yard sized area of territory by reciting all the songs it knows, as loud as it can. Over and over again, until it is exhausted. The little psychos. Thus impressing all the lady mockingbirds in the area. Apparently they do a little dance as well, but given it's usually the middle of the night when this happens, I haven't seen it. They used to drive me nuts until I read up on them. Now I try to count how many songs they know.

ctoth 5y ago
Now I am convinced that Mockingbirds are merely bird repeaters helping move messages through a bird network.
- dtgriscom 5y ago
  Playing telephone via bird call. In one end as a song sparrow, out the other end as a Great Blue Heron.
ses4j 5y ago
Merlin is the most widely-used audio recognition app. It's amazing, try it out. BirdNET is another project (also affiliated with Cornell) that works in a similar way. This project is about locally installing BirdNET.
thefourthchime 5y ago
You should try the app. it's great!
gs17 5y ago
For me, the app version is able to detect mockingbirds (and the similar mimicking Brown Thrasher) as themselves most of the time. I'm honestly impressed it can do it at all for their songs on small samples.

kingsloi 5y ago

Awesome! I've been eyeing up a Vizycam (https://vizycam.com https://vizycam.com) to do bird identification but via visual recognition. Sounds like this would be a great addition and would pair nicely with the Vizycam, both run on Pis, too!

mrbombastic 5y ago
You may be aware of this in same space, they have delayed for quite a while but apparently just started production: https://mybirdbuddy.com https://mybirdbuddy.com

techterrier 5y ago

BirdNET is ace, looking foward to building it into our app...Birda[0] (Strava for birdwatching). We are hiring too if any nature loving engineers want to work in conservation - dom@birda.org (need to be able to get to London once a fortnight) https://birda.org/ https://birda.org/

rlf_dev 5y ago
Hey, you guys are looking to implement BirdNET into iOS ? If so I have no problem sharing the code I'm using in a small app I made using BirdNET-Lite (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bird-sound-identifier/id1541890005 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bird-sound-identifier/id154189...)
- techterrier 5y ago
  that's great! I'll drop you an email
- WelcomeShorty 5y ago
  Cool. Bought it and much to my surprise, it worked. Surprised since I live in a city, construction going on, motorcycles passing and still: it detected my beloved house sparrows :) Will give it a shot later tonight when the noise pollution dies down and the birds get going.
  - rlf_dev 5y ago
    Thanks ! I'm now in the process of updating to the new 2022 model.
Aaronstotle 5y ago
I love hackernews because I come here to procrastinate and end in rabbit holes (was looking at getting a raspberry pi for this project), and now I found about this app! I use strava all the time so that's a great description
chrisweekly 5y ago
App Store says Birda isn't available in my country or region. (USA). Hmm.

mark_l_watson 5y ago

So cool. I just joined the Arizona Audubon Society a month ago and I go out with birding groups a couple of times a week, really fun activity!

gkfasdfasdf 5y ago

10s of dollars idea: add as a feature to outdoor nest cams.

mongol 5y ago

Birdwatching is so rewarding, I can really recommend it. It feels Real (TM) to go out and watch what happens in nature, live, with your own eyes. You get out, visit new places, practise your senses in ways you don't do otherwise, and are rewarded with new experiences.

shon 5y ago

Thank you, super cool.

lesgobrandon 5y ago

low_tech_love 5y ago

That is, assuming birds are real...?

rolobio 5y ago
Am I the only one who has gotten very tired of this meme? I laughed at a few of them, but now its just everywhere it seems.
- millzlane 5y ago
  Why do you think Cornell invested so much money in this program?
- UberFly 5y ago
  It's a five-year old meme at this point and yea they all get old almost immediately.
- kej 5y ago
  As an aside, there was interesting piece with the Birds Aren't Real creator recently, where he steps out of character and talks about his accidental satire fits into the wider field of conspiracy theories: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/14/the-lunacy-is-getting-more-intense-how-birds-arent-real-took-on-the-conspiracy-theorists https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/14/the-lunacy-i...
nullc 5y ago
Clearly this software is actually for tracking the varrious surveillance drones that are disguised as "birds", it's just easier to distribute if they play along with the ruse. Checkout the logo of the software-- they're clearly saying that birds are mechanical. :P

gotaquestion 5y ago

This is so awesome. I tried to write something like this in 2007 (I called it "Tweeter") but the state of embedded hardware for makers back then was a bit more challenging so it was all PC based. I tried simple spectrogram correlation by sliding a window and comparing low-precision spectra, but I don't know enough about DSP so it never worked. Glad to see it is finally a reality.

frodprefect 5y ago

Similar to AudioMoth https://www.openacousticdevices.info/ https://www.openacousticdevices.info/

gadders 5y ago

BirdNet is a great app.

jcpst 5y ago

Loving these turn-key Pi projects showing up on HN today.

formerkrogemp 5y ago
They are quite lovely.
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mankyd 5y ago

Weird caveat, but I wonder about the legality of this in various jurisdictions. In my own state in the US, it is generally illegal to record audio without consent. There are various interpretations of this, and probably putting a sign up saying "audio recording in progress" is enough, but it's worth considering. To be clear, even private, indoor security cameras are not allowed to record audio in my state, though few people realize this. Security camera websites and software do nothing to make this obvious.

nullc 5y ago
Even then, you'd still need someone to bring an action. No one is going to bring an action over a private bird monitor. It might be nice though if the "live audio" detected human voices and auto-muted them. If you're making a live audio feed available you should post a notice for sure.
- mankyd 5y ago
  Yup. I myself get along fine with my neighbors and wouldn't be concerned, per se. I simply think folks should be aware. There's plenty of lawsuits in my state regarding "illegal wiretapping" and not everyone has good relationships with their neighbors.
nick238 5y ago
Those laws are usually about eavesdropping, and most states (e.g. my state of Illinois) have carveouts for a "reasonable expectation of privacy" (though I found something saying Montana doesn't?). Recording people inside an Illinois hotel room, felony eavesdropping. Recording audio in the hotel lobby, irrelevant. I think you'd have an extremely uphill battle that says a mic outside was "knowingly and intentionally" used to eavesdrop. You would then also need to demonstrate one of: 1. it was done purposefully to eavesdrop (no, it was meant to record birds) 2. it was done to record/transmit/overhear the conversation 3. even if inadvertent, someone used/disclosed anything in the private conversation heard If all the audio is getting processed to be maybe this or that bird, and the raw feed isn't stored, let alone rehosted, I don't think there's an issue.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

Does anyone know if it can detect when someone is using a birdsong app? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-22863383 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-22863383 Serious question because some birds mimic sounds like mobile ring tones so I didnt know if some birds also pick human accents? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-16154490 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-16154490

martini333 5y ago

Ahh yes, let me just run curl ... | bash

scubbo 5y ago
If you're savvy enough to know why that's potentially dangerous, you're savvy enough to pipe to an intermediate executable file to inspect the code.
- noja 5y ago
  If you're technical enough to answer that, then you're technical enough to know that security by default is better.
  - scubbo 5y ago
    No, I'm sorry, I seriously don't understand how that applies in this case. How is "trusting the content you get from `apt-get`/`dpkg`/`pacman`" safer than curling-to-bash? In both cases, you are downloading and installing content from a trusted source (assuming you are curling via https to avoid MITMs). In the curl-to-bash case, you have the _ability_ to at least inspect the code first before you install it (though, realistically, how many folks would really have the dedication and the ability to do so?), whereas with package managers you're installing "blind". Doesn't that make curling-to-bash the _safer_ option? I clearly must be missing something, here, because everyone decries "curling-to-bash" as a bad security practice, but I haven't seen an explanation of _why_. I tried doing some research for myself - this page[1] suggests that package managers have built-in checksumming and signature verification, but then goes on to propose an attack vector where the load balancer is compromised, so (presumably?) those same checksums/signatures could also be intercepted and faked. This gist[2] has a lot of people speaking against it, but from following those links, the only downside I could see was here[3], pointing out that the shell will keep executing if a connection closes mid-stream - which, yes, is certainly a bad thing and a good argument to use package managers, but not what I would call a security concern (unless you don't trust the entity on the other end of the stream - and, again, I'm taking that as a prerequisite both for `curl | bash` and for using package managers). This[4] demonstrates that a server can detect `curl | bash` and render differently - but, again, if you trust the entity at the other end, that's not an issue. This is a genuine question, not a fight - you clearly know more about this than me, so I'm asking for your perspective, not challenging you. I recognize that there are non-security flaws to `curl | bash` (handling updates, handling unreliable connections), but I don't see how it's a security concern. How would a malicious attacker exploit someone doing a `curl | bash` from a trusted location over https? [1] https://sysdig.com/blog/friends-dont-let-friends-curl-bash/ https://sysdig.com/blog/friends-dont-let-friends-curl-bash/ [2] https://gist.github.com/btm/6700524 https://gist.github.com/btm/6700524 [3] https://www.seancassidy.me/dont-pipe-to-your-shell.html https://www.seancassidy.me/dont-pipe-to-your-shell.html [4] https://www.idontplaydarts.com/2016/04/detecting-curl-pipe-bash-server-side/ https://www.idontplaydarts.com/2016/04/detecting-curl-pipe-b...

mycowerk 5y ago

BirdNET and Pl@ntNet have to be my favorite uses of AI to date. A true use of technology for the greater good. I've actually been thinking about automated bird recognition for a while now, I live underneath a flight corridor for migrating common cranes (near Berlin). I'd love to be able to one day track their migration across the continent in real time using data from crowdsourced base stations. I wonder if migrating birds could be identified in flight using optical/radar/audio. If anybody else has had similar ideas I'd really love to chat on this topic.

shellfishgene 5y ago
The iNaturalist app is also quite amazing for identification of all kinds of organisms by image. The also have the "Seek" app which identifies species even offline.
- nanidin 5y ago
  The Seek app is one of those things that you can show people and they think it is magic, even in this day and age. I got my mom and my grandma using it!
- nkrisc 5y ago
  I use both apps, they’re pretty amazing. I typically use Seek first and if it can’t identify the image it lets you upload it to iNaturalist seamlessly for manual identification. I believe then those identifications are then used to further train the model.
TheaomBen 5y ago
I've been toying around with photogrammetrically matching in-flight bird silhouettes in order to have a plantnetlike bird classifier. Very much in the data acquisition stage but I'm seeing moderate success in clustering images by bird shape so far. In between other photogrammetry work I'm starting to think about how to use colour information and reading up on how to select and train a ML model for this problem.
- 5y ago

mickhead23 5y ago

Cool. I can get behind a data gathering tool like this project. My problem with Merlin and Merlin-style apps is they attempt to do everything related to identification which shortchanges users because they don't teach fundamental skills.

shellfishgene 5y ago
I don't think I agree, I was just on holiday in a new country and am not a birder, but with birdnet and Merlin I learned to identify birds by song quite quickly. If not for the apps how would you even find out what bird you hear if you never see it, as happens often in dense forest?
- mickhead23 5y ago
  A really specific scenario that might illustrate my point! App or no app, I would accept at the outset it may not be possible, or even advisable, to attempt positive identifications (by ear) of unfamiliar species in a country I've never visited, unless I were in the company of an experienced local friend or guide. Otherwise, I would concentrate on getting good quality field recordings to share when I got home. Same thing goes for birding at home..Merlin and other apps simply cannot approximate that kind of experience building, at this time.

murphyslab 5y ago

Does anyone have experience with how this deals with background noise? It appears to be analyzing audio spectra, but can it detect a birdsong against the background of a busy road or a railway nearby? I've seen and heard so many birds near where I live (red-tailed hawks, northern flickers, european starlings, magpies, finches, ...), but audio recordings of them have always been hampered by the sounds of human activity.

rmnclmnt 5y ago
The original paper [1] me tions data augmentation in the training dataset such as background noise addition, so it seems to be part of the initial design. As always with non-stationary noisy signal, any estimator will reach its limit to a certain point. [1] https://monarch.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A36986/attachment/ATT-0/ https://monarch.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A36986/attachment/ATT-...

jancsika 5y ago

Is this limited to detecting sounds emanating from the cheapo DACs installed in all extant birds? If so, it would be nice if they'd add a flag to analyze songs from the legacy birds heard in old recordings.

modzu 5y ago

when are they going to add translation?

qayxc 5y ago
Would that even work (assuming you mean the bird songs)? I'd imagine bird songs are mostly equivalent to non-verbal singing (e.g. like "la la la") combined with very general information like "I'm here, healthy and single". I really doubt there's anything in bird songs that would constitute language in the sense of verbal expression of information (not to be confused with warning calls, which could as well be specific to certain predators e.g. different calls for "snake", "raptor", or "cat").

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

Is this really capable of live 24/7 local bird sound identification? That sounds like it could have a huuuuuuge effect on all kinds of things world-wide. Imagine real-time tracking of whether bird sounds are getting fewer and fewer, or tracking real time changes in bird song around the world due to climate change, or just specific species disappearing due to environmental factors. Or being able to push back on new development that harms local bird populations by measuring a reduction in song. The possibilities are endless!

krick 5y ago

I wonder in which environment this is used. Does it handle all the noises of a typical human-populated environment well enough? Or do people only successfully use it in very remote areas?

sandgiant 5y ago

This is so great! I feel like most ML ("AI") products are just linear regressions with fancy packaging, but this actually looks super cool! I want to set this up in my summer house ASAP. Thanks for sharing.

gerdesj 5y ago

Cool. I live next to a park in Somerset, UK. The birdsong in the morning is currently near deafening. The summer house at the bottom of our garden happens to have mains power, a PoE switch and an AP. It sounds like it needs a second Pi (the other runs a TV)

beamatronic 5y ago

Looks incredible and can't wait to try it. By the way there is a broken link, I got an error when trying to go to caddyserver.com

mholt 5y ago
Indeed, the link should not include "www.". (We've never used that subdomain.)

frontierkodiak 5y ago

I'm working on a similar project for pollinators. We've got a bumblebee identification webapp up (https://beemachine.ai/ https://beemachine.ai/), and I'm working on a tool to automatically monitor pollination activity. Have been working on running quantized versions of my models on a Jetson Nano, and I would love to build something analogous to BirdNET-Pi if I can figure out a satisfactory camera situation for the Pi. There's a lot of exciting conservation potential in this space, but a lot of research is constrained by the expense & difficulty of getting decent sample sizes. Decentralized data collection (citizen science!) is the answer. If there's any others working on similar projects, please reach out, I'd love to chat!

CalRobert 5y ago

Thank you for sharing this!!!! I have a few acres of grazing land that I've been letting go fallow and reforesting for a few years. I've wanted to track the arrival of different species (when will the swallows get here?) etc. and do bird counts over the years, but have always been too lazy to wire this up. This will be very useful!

fumblebee 5y ago
A wonderful and colourful book on the subject of rewilding is: Wilding by Isabella Tree [1]. It's made me really want to do what you, she, and her husband, have done, though unfortunately my dank city flat lacks the sufficient acreage. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38891828-wilding https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38891828-wilding
- CalRobert 5y ago
  I've read about this person in the Guardian I think. Will have to check out the book. For what it's worth, I had a dank city flat, but moved to the place with acreage after getting tired of paying tons of rent to live near bars I could never go to after having a kid.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

Well, there's another fun thing to add to the Magic Mirror. Have to find a space near the aircraft identifier widget.

EA 5y ago

I wonder if this would be a way to passively search for calls of the possibly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker; even with a small number of audio recordings in existence. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093006040/the-ivory-billed-woodpecker-is-not-extinct-researchers-claim https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093006040/the-ivory-billed-w...

pfdietz 5y ago

I have Cornell's Merlin app installed on my phone. It will recognize bird vocalizations and seems to do it rather well. Ambient noise has to be low, and if there are too many birds it doesn't work well either.

ea550ff70a 5y ago

this is awesome. will def get one of this going soon. thanks for the idea op!