BirdNET not working?

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Derek Richardson

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Apr 15, 2021, 10:40:11 AM4/15/21
to Maryland & DC Birding
Is anyone else having trouble getting BirdNET to work properly for identifying uploaded audio clips? It stopped working for me a day or so ago.

And to keep this relevant to MD birding, here's part of a clip I was hoping to analyze (the song is a little faint, repeated 3 times). I'm confident now it's a White-eyed Vireo due to the pattern and consistency, but it was my first of the season and I'd been hearing a lot of variable Ruby-crowned Kinglet song at the time. This was at Rocky Gorge Reservoir in PG County yesterday morning. 250 Hz high pass filter applied.

Thanks,

-Derek

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Derek Richardson (he/him/his)
West Laurel MD USA
20210414-101419_01_WEVI.wav

Dean Mahlstedt

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Apr 15, 2021, 2:59:10 PM4/15/21
to Derek Richardson, Maryland & DC Birding
I’m currently in Ponte Vedra, Florida and mine is working fine.   Dean

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 15, 2021, at 10:40 AM, Derek Richardson <derek.c.r...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Scott Young

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Apr 15, 2021, 3:09:51 PM4/15/21
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It’s stopped working for me as well, but only for most files.

Scott Young
Gaithersburg 

Kurt Schwarz

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Apr 15, 2021, 4:23:48 PM4/15/21
to Scott Young, Maryland & DC Birding
What is bird net? I’ve never heard of it.

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Kurt Schwarz
Ellicott City, Howard County
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Derek Richardson

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Apr 15, 2021, 6:51:27 PM4/15/21
to Kurt Schwarz, Scott Young, Maryland & DC Birding
Hi Kurt (et al.), BirdNET (click the link to visit) is both an online platform and a smartphone app for analyzing sound clips to identify bird songs and calls using deep learning algorithms. I was able to use the app successfully today, but I prefer the versatility of uploading on the website, and that part is still not working for me. (The way it used to work is that as it played the clip, it would show you live histograms of species probabilities according to its algorithms in 5-second-or-so segments -- pretty neat!) The development team is based in Germany, but I think they either got a grant from the Cornell Lab or were collaborating with them in some fashion.

D

David Gibson

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Apr 15, 2021, 7:23:10 PM4/15/21
to Derek Richardson, Maryland & DC Birding
Derek, It sounds like a White-eyed Vireo in a hurry. It doesn't sound like a kinglet. My .02.
Dave Gibson
Chesapeake, VA



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JAMES SPEICHER

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Apr 15, 2021, 10:41:49 PM4/15/21
to Kurt Schwarz, Maryland & DC Birding, Derek Richardson
BIRDNET was new to me too.  While it wouldn't work on my cell phone for some reason, it's working fine on my laptop and Chrome browser.

Attaching a recording made of a Brown Thrasher on 4/10, which anyone can download and dump into the BN link [https://birdnet.cornell.edu/api/]

Jim S

On Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 4:23 PM Kurt Schwarz <kurtsc...@gmail.com> wrote:
2021_04_10_18_07_33.wav

Derek Richardson

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Apr 16, 2021, 8:14:42 AM4/16/21
to JAMES SPEICHER, Kurt Schwarz, Maryland & DC Birding
Thanks everyone -- I can confirm that Jim's audio file works for me whereas my own audio files, which used to work, do not. Investigating further, I noticed that my audio files have the following characteristics:

RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 24 bit, mono 48000 Hz

Whereas Jim's audio file that works has the following characteristics:

RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 16 bit, mono 44100 Hz

The only differences appear to be the bit depth and sample frequency. I've left a message on BirdNET's support page to see if their API has changed so that my encoding format is no longer compatible.

I'll let you know what I find out -- thanks for all the help!

D

bghen...@gmail.com

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Apr 16, 2021, 9:18:44 AM4/16/21
to Maryland & DC Birding
I did a little bit of testing with your audio file and it does appear that if you convert it to 16-bit, BirdNet processes the file, but 24-bit seems to cause an issue currently.  I suspect that is an inadvertently introduced bug.  I tested with a few of my audio files and 24-bit is also failing for my files.

Hopefully you can get ahold of them - I've tried contacting them for other purposes previously and had no luck.

Derek Richardson

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Apr 28, 2021, 2:38:11 PM4/28/21
to Maryland & DC Birding
A final follow-up on this: a few weeks ago, the BirdNET admins thanked us for the detail provided on the issue and said they would look into it. I never heard back after that, but I just tried now and I see that 24-bit samples are being recognized again, so I guess it's fixed!

Thanks everyone for your help,

D

JAMES SPEICHER

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Apr 28, 2021, 3:54:37 PM4/28/21
to Derek Richardson, Maryland & DC Birding
I did find on eBird FAQs that there are minimum requirements for audio. Mentioned is a 16 bit threshold, but no mention of any preference on bit size.

Still if 24 bit is the new standard, how does one find the recorder app among the many offerings with that as an option? 

Jim S

Scott Young

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Apr 28, 2021, 4:12:04 PM4/28/21
to Maryland & DC Birding
There was apparently some sort of programming glitch because all the sound files (on multiple platforms) that became unusable by BirdNET now play fine. I doubt think that there has been any change in requirements...

Scott Young
Gaithersburg

Bryan H

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Apr 28, 2021, 4:18:22 PM4/28/21
to JAMES SPEICHER, Derek Richardson, Maryland & DC Birding
Jim,

24-bit is just higher fidelity for the sound (more bits to represent the sound, gives more subtlety to the recording).  16-bit recordings provide a *lot* of scientific value.

My understanding is that few phone apps currently support 24-bit are uncommon (and many of them complicated and meant for other uses), so I wouldn't worry about 24-bit recording from your smartphone yet.  The one recommended by ebird - Hi-Res Audio Recorder seems to no longer be available in the google play store.

The suggested apps and tips for smartphone recording can be found here: https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48001064305-smartphone-recording-tips

Hope that helps,
Bryan

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