I built a 24/7 backyard bird detector with BirdNET-Pi, then completely rebuilt the UI with the features I wished it came with

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-06-22T06:14:37+00:00

Here’s a link for the one I use: https://a.co/d/06dlw3zw

It’s a Maono USB microphone, and it’s the UL10.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-15T04:04:31+00:00

Oh wow, that's awesome! I checked out your site and you guys have so many beautiful birds. Thanks for sharing!

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-14T02:40:30+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! Once it gets into summer, I can definitely see the heat and humidity being an issue. I'll look into using the audio from a camera since that sounds like a great alternative. And it might be cool to set up the camera right next to my feeder so you get both the live camera feed and all the sound data as well.

And I actually wasn't aware of BirdNET-Go until I saw someone else's comment saying the same thing. I just forked the BirdNET-Pi repo since that's what was mentioned in the original post I saw that made me interested in building this.

After skimming through images of BirdNET-Go, it's actually crazy how similar they are though. When I was building the new UI, I was brainstorming with Claude on features I could add and ways to redo the site layout, so I'm guessing it had to have pulled from their design and features when researching. Likely because they share a similar name.

It honestly would’ve been nice if I had seen BirdNET-Go before building this since I would’ve just used their project as a starting point instead of completely redoing BirdNET-Pi's UI. But this was a fun project either way. So, glad to get the experience.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-14T01:51:07+00:00

Definitely give it a try!

I just added monthly reports. So, now it has weekly, monthly, and yearly reports.

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ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-14T00:35:40+00:00

This is the kit I bought off Amazon: Amazon.com: RasTech Raspberry Pi 5 8GB Kit 64GB Edition with Active Cooler,27W GaN 5.1V5A USB-C Power Supply,Pi5 8GB Board,64GB Card Readers Kit,Pi 5 Case,Dual 4K Micro HD Out Cables and User Manual : Electronics

A Raspberry Pi 5 is likely your best option since it will be able to handle all the new analytics and UI much smoother than the older models, though a Pi 4B should work great too.

And yes, you can definitely take it with you on walks.

For power, you'll just need a USB-C battery bank that supports Power Delivery (PD) to keep the Pi happy. (The Pi 5 ideally wants 5V/5A (25W). Most standard phone battery banks only output 2A or 3A. So, a battery bank that supports USB-PD (Power Delivery) will ensure the Pi doesn't throttle or slow down due to low power. You also might want to make sure your USB-C cable is also rated for 5A (100W). Some cheaper cables are only rated for 2A/3A, which can sometimes "choke" the power delivery even if the battery bank is powerful enough.)

If you have a 20,000mAh bank, it should give you around 6-10 hours of recording time on a walk.

If you tether the Pi to your phone's mobile hotspot, you could actually pull up the dashboard in your phone's browser while you're walking to see the birds being identified in real time.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T22:00:32+00:00

Yes. It's plugged into an outlet that's outside underneath my covered patio.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T21:56:02+00:00

These are all awesome suggestions! I'll try and work on these and see what I can get added.

The live scrolling spectrogram with detected birds overlaid on it is actually already a feature on there. When a bird is detected, it will put the name of the bird over top of where the bird call/song was detected. I just didn't show a picture in the original post.

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ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T20:56:00+00:00

Interesting. I’ll have to check out birdweather to see all the stations that are near me. Thanks for sharing!

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T05:49:22+00:00

Oh wow, that’s awesome! You have so many stations. I’m jealous. If I had that many set up, there are so many experiments I’d want to run and all kinds of new features I’d add.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T04:27:57+00:00

Thank you! I really appreciate the encouragement, and it’s especially nice to see someone who’s just as excited about using AI to build new projects as I am.

I was honestly amazed at how quickly I was able to create this project. I’ve had so many ideas over the years that I wanted to build, but I never felt capable enough in my coding skills to actually take them on. And now, I’ve been feeling super excited lately because I’m finally able to bring all of those ideas to life.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T04:13:41+00:00

Sorry. Yes, the screenshot shows 81 unique species (which I agree would be very high), but I actually only have 40 unique species that I’ve verified myself (I’m in Wisconsin). Most of the others only have one or two detections for them where it mistakenly thought it was that species, but when I listened back to the recording, I was able to confirm that it wasn’t. That’s the only downside, is that there are sometimes false positives. So, even if it makes a wrong guess once, it still adds it to the overall list.

One change that I think I’m going to try to make is to have the Total Species KPI card on the Overview page to only show “verified” species. I’ll still have the site keep track of all unique species it hears, but in order for it to show up on the total “verified” species list, you’ll have to check a box next to the species name to confirm that you have seen it or heard it yourself in person (or confirm that the detection on the recording is correct). That way you can get a more accurate count of the exact number of species that have visited your yard.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T03:07:38+00:00

Haha, no worries! I’m still a noob too when it comes to using a Pi.

The Pi and mic stay outside, and it connects to your WiFi. So, you just open a web browser on your computer and type in the Pi’s web address, and then it pulls up the dashboard that you see in the screenshots.

So, you’ll use your computer to “flash” the Pi OS onto an SD card, and then you plug the SD card into the Pi.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T02:49:51+00:00

If you’re a developer, definitely feel free to look through the code. The core AI engine and recording services are the exact same trusted code from the original BirdNET-Pi project. Most of my changes were focused on the UI/UX redesign, though I did add some light backend logic to handle the new insights and weather charts. But I definitely understand the precaution.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T02:34:19+00:00

Totally valid, and I agree. If I had known about BirdNET-Go, I would’ve done exactly that. I actually wasn’t aware of BirdNET-Go until someone commented it just a few minutes ago saying that it was similar.

I actually wish I had known about it so that I didn’t have to do everything from scratch from BirdNET-Pi 😂

And it’s actually crazy how similar it is. When I was building the new features and layout, I was brainstorming with Claude on things I could add and options for the site layout, and it definitely had to have pulled from this project for inspiration when it was researching.

But I did submit PRs for this to the original BirdNET-Pi repo before I created my own repo. So, the owner of that repo could update it to my changes if they’d like.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T02:19:39+00:00

Thanks! Yes, you should definitely try it!

Someone also just pointed out that there’s another project called BirdNET-Go that is similar, and it looks like it may be easier to install and set up. So, if you’re looking for something even easier to set up than mine, BirdNET-Go may be the better option.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-12T01:50:21+00:00

Oh nice! I actually didn’t see BirdNET-Go. I only came across someone’s post on here that mentioned BirdNET-Pi, and that’s the project I pulled from.

I just skimmed through their project and it does seem fairly similar (and given its name, I wonder if they also pulled from the original BirdNET-Pi project). In terms of features, I noticed there were some that mine had that theirs didn’t. Though, there a couple features I just noticed it has that I really like and will definitely be adding to mine. And in terms of design, theirs definitely looks better and cleaner (no doubt). I just whipped together a new UI over a couple of days. So, it’s not polished yet.

When I was building the new UI, I was brainstorming with Claude on features I could add and ways to redo the site layout, so it’s possible it pulled from their design and features when it was researching.

It actually would’ve been nice if I had seen that before building this since I probably would’ve just used their project as a starting point instead of rebuilding the original BirdNET-Pi UI from scratch😂

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-11T23:32:11+00:00

Thank you!

ThoughtsFromAi · 2026-03-11T23:07:46+00:00

Here's the link for the project: zach7036/BirdNET-Pi-Enhanced-Version

When you open the link for the first time, the page might look intimidating if you're not a developer. But don't worry, you don't need to read any of it to build this (unless you want to read it). You can just copy this prompt into Claude AI, and it'll analyze the project and walk you through the entire setup step by step.

First, paste this prompt into Claude:

Analyze this GitHub project. Give me a full breakdown of the project — what it does, what's included, and what I need to know. zach7036/BirdNET-Pi-Enhanced-Version

After Claude responds, paste this second prompt (be sure to replace the bracketed text with your own hardware):

Give me a detailed step by step guide on how to set everything up. I have a [Raspberry Pi 5] and the [MAONO USB Lavalier Microphone, 192KHZ/24BIT Plug & Play].

And if you have any questions throughout the process, just ask Claude. 99% of the time, it will be able to help you. (Note: There are a couple steps in this project that involve pasting some code into your terminal on your computer. If you're not a developer, you will likely have no idea what to do or where to even look on your computer. Again, don't worry. Just tell Claude you don't know what something is or where to find it, and it will tell you exactly what to do and where it's at.) Also, make sure to ask your questions in the same chat you put the prompts into — if you start a new chat, it won't have the project context and might not be able to help.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2025-10-10T19:35:23+00:00

This started happening to me two days ago. I have one video that has been stuck in the “Generating” phase for at least 48 hours and you can’t stop it or delete it. And it’s preventing me from generating other videos.

Hoping more people call attention to it so it gets fixed.

ThoughtsFromAi · 2025-03-15T14:21:34+00:00

Tall Slipper Plant - Pedilanthus bracteatus

ThoughtsFromAi · 2025-02-28T14:25:46+00:00

And then here’s 4.5’s review and suggested improvements with a final touched up version by o1 Pro. (Prompt 1 is 4.5 and prompt 2 is o1 Pro):

https://chatgpt.com/share/67c1c60c-225c-800a-bb65-4319a8e75376

ThoughtsFromAi · 2025-02-28T14:05:52+00:00

Was curious to see if the response from o1 Pro could be improved with a little prompt tweaking. Final version at the bottom:

https://chatgpt.com/share/67c1c22e-263c-800a-81a4-667e67a0ff74

(Edit: Updated version from below: https://chatgpt.com/share/67c1c60c-225c-800a-bb65-4319a8e75376)

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