BirdNET-Pi: Listen to and Identify the Birds in Your Backyard

Raspberry Pis are a boon to citizen science. Tiny, cheap, low-power but highly functional Linux systems that can drive and monitor a wide variety of instruments--it's a dream come true. And there are tons of Pi-powered projects out there just waiting for you to join them. BirdNet-Pi is one such project. It's Pi-powered software that listens to bird calls and identifies them using machine learning. I've had it capture and identify hundreds of bird calls in a single day. And in the short time I've been running it, I've learned more about birds than I did during the rest of my life. It's a fairly new project, and there's not very many installations, so it's very likely that you can make a big impact by joining now.

Installation is pretty easy, so as long as you've got all the right equipment, you might want to just jump in by running the installation script at BirdNET-Pi.com. Otherwise, read on.

If you don't have a Raspberry Pi, BirdNET is still available to you: there are versions for iPhone and Android phones, and the source code for the analysis engine is available on github. But the rest of this post is about the Raspberry Pi version.

Recommended Equipment

A 4GB or 8GB Raspberry Pi 4. In theory this should cost you around $70 bucks, but see below.
A USB-C power supply, which should cost about $10.
An omnidirectional microphone. Here's the one I bought, which is probably overkill. It was $60. You can almost certainly use a cheaper mic--just find something omnidirectional.
A mic-to-USB adapter. As long as it's compatible it will do, here's the one I got. Both this mic and adapter use 1/8" TRRS plugs. Most 1/8" mics are TRS or TRRS. Just make sure the mic and adapter are matched: if the mic you bought has a "TRS" plug, make sure the adapter is also "TRS".
A 128GB or larger MicroSD card, $20. These are so cheap nowadays, so spend a few extra bucks and get a brand name.
A Raspberry Pi case, $15. I like the Flirc fanless case, but really any will do

It's insanely difficult to get a Raspberry Pi 4 right now (November 2022) so that is the hardest item on the list. You can use an older Raspberry Pi 3 or a Raspberry Pi Zero W 2 if you're lucky enough to have one sitting around, but you'll have to set it up slightly differently to cope with the reduced oomph. In that case, use the instructions here.

P.S. It's unclear how well things work on a Raspberry Pi 4 with only 2GB. The memory usage on my system indicates that the BirdNET-Pi system uses less than 1GB actively. However, having more memory available to use as filesystem cache is a good idea. BirdNET does write a lot of temp files. It's good to have RAM available to cache these temp files rather than using up flash write cycles.

aviary:~/BirdNET-Pi$ free
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         7999844      642192     3585688       40300     3771964     7195708
Swap:         102396           0      102396

Some Notes on Installation

The latest Raspberry Pi Imager makes installing and configuring the OS easier than ever. Download the imager, select "Raspberry Pi OS (other)" and "Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit)".

Then go to "Advanced Options" and set the following items:

Pick a hostname. If you're in the spirit, pick something bird-related (mine is called "aviary")
Enable SSH
Set the command line username and password. It's probably easiest to just use the default username "pi". This is NOT the username/password used in the web interface--see below for that.
Configure wifi.
Set your time zone.

Raspberry Pi Imager Advanced Options

Then select your MicroSD card, press go, and a few minutes later, you'll have your configured OS ready to pop in the Raspberry Pi.

When the system comes up, log in using ssh, and make sure everything looks ok. I did a "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt upgrade" to get everything on the latest and greatest versions, and I also installed Tailscale.

Then, run the installation script as directed on the BirdNET-Pi page

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi/main/newinstaller.sh | bash

IMPORTANT NOTE: This installer does not coexist well with other apps, and may stomp on other running services on the system. So if you're looking to install on a Raspberry Pi that is used for multiple purposes, you're on your own. The BirdNET-Pi github page has a section on this: they know this isn't ideal and would like help: "Please note that installing BirdNET-Pi on top of other servers is not supported. If this is something that you require, please open a discussion for your idea and inquire about how to contribute to development."

First Test Drive

The installer will take a while to complete. Once it completes, you can go to your host (in my case, "http://aviary/") and see the running web interface. Click on "Live Audio"--it will ask you to log in (user/pw: "birdnet"/no password)--to verify that your microphone is working.

Once that's sorted, go to "Tools->Settings" and investigate the options you have. At a minimum, you should set a new password (under "Advanced->Password"), and your location. Once you've got the system up and detecting birds, you will want to set your location and have your data sent to BirdWeather; both of these are set on "Tools->Settings".

Set the system up in a suitable location, and as soon as a bird visits, you'll get your first live bird detection.

Weather-Proofing Your Installation

Finding a box for the Pi that is both rain-proof and adequately ventilated is difficult. And good luck finding an affordable weather-proof microphone. I'm lucky to have an outdoor location for my pi that is sheltered from most rain, but I'd like to find something more robust. If you have any suggestions, send them my way and I'll add them here, but I can't personally recommend anything just yet.

Things I've Learned About Birds

The California Towhee and California Scrub-Jay are loud and frequent visitors.
I get a visit from a flock of Red-crowned Parrots every morning at the same time, almost TO THE MINUTE. I knew they visited every morning, but I didn't realize how punctual they were.
There's an owl that's active at 1am that I've never heard live, but the BirdNET records beautifully.
Red-tailed hawks have the best-sounding call.

Have fun and happy birding!