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I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

jasontucker.blog

51–60 of 197 posts

Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#51
post #22

Btw, Merlin Bird ID app by Cornell University is so good that I got some people interested that weren't into that topic at all.

But a warning for novice birders: Merlin's sound ID feature produces a lot of false positives.

I've not seen this personally, but maybe it's region specific.

Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#52
I noticed the linked blog mentions birds and bats. I thought bat chirps required higher sample rates than the microphones normally use. I have an Audiomoth and to set it up for bats you need to use the highest sample rate for proper ID.

I like this project. I have been using security cams around my place to keep track of animals meandering across the property. It's the best use for an outdoor solar-powered webcam if you ask me. You can get a feel for which animal to expect based on time of day or other characteristics. You also recognize those who regularly visit. I have a one-eyed raccoon that has been showing up for almost two years now. It's a female and the last time she visited the monitored fountain she had 5 rambunctious raccoonlets.

Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#53
post #48

I run BirdNET-Go as an app on my Home Assistant i7 M710q. I use the GPU-enabled BirdNET model and Perch V2, and it works swimmingly. Input is three RTSP streams from various Reolink PoE cameras around our house, and it is pretty cool to be able to find and listen to the birds/frogs that come.

Have you found a way to identify frogs? I also have a BirdNET (the older -PI, not -Go) setup, but haven't seen a way to get anything other than birds identified.

The many frogs around my house are identified as black-crowned night heron. I was very excited for a while since that bird is not common where I live.

Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#54

I noticed the linked blog mentions birds and bats. I thought bat chirps required higher sample rates than the microphones normally use. I have an Audiomoth and to set it up for bats you need to use the highest sample rate for proper ID. I like this project. I have been using security cams around my place to keep track of animals meandering across the property. It's the best use for an outdoor solar-powered webcam if…

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Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#56

I run BirdNET-Go as an app on my Home Assistant i7 M710q. I use the GPU-enabled BirdNET model and Perch V2, and it works swimmingly. Input is three RTSP streams from various Reolink PoE cameras around our house, and it is pretty cool to be able to find and listen to the birds/frogs that come.

I have a situation with a couple of hundred chimney swifts. I want to set-up cameras to differentiate between individual swifts.

Any advice on how to go about this.

My current plan is to put multiple cameras at the mouth of the chimney opening which is about 42"x42"(1mx1m).

Does this sound realistic to anyone with experience?

Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#57
post #27
post #11

ha, now imagine some hacker changing all the Flock firmware nationwide to do bird identification too would have been a great Mr. Robot episode

Sorry, no luck tracking down your ex-girlfriend, but we do have a line on an ivory-billed woodpecker.

Lol, nice. Does an audio recording of an ivory-billed exist?

Re: I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system

#60

Heads up. I noticed the screenshot of your markdown card has an ASCII block that goes below the baseline. `U+2588` (Full block) tends to do that depending on a lot of things. I made a change to the markdown card sometime ago that uses only `U+2581` through `U+ 2587` instead to avoid that issue. It's under a collapsed block here: https://www.kyleniewiada.org/blog/2025/05/backyard-bird-trac...

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