About Bird Find

Bird Find is an off-shoot project by the BIOMON Research team focusing on monitoring a variety of bird species. The BIOMON device is equipped to recognise the vocalisations of numerous Australian bird species and send these identifications back to the research team in real time. We are currently testing this device on the grounds of the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Occasionally, identifications made by the BIOMON device require validation as calls are quiet, far away or washed out by other noises. This is where you come in!

As a Bird Finder, your task will be to listen to recordings and help validate the identifications made by the BIOMON device. Your input is crucial, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the data we collect. By helping us, you directly contribute to the success of our project and play a vital role in protecting and preserving Australian biodiversity. Your participation makes a significant difference, and we couldn't achieve our goals without your support.

About BIOMON

The Biosensor Monitoring project (BIOMON), is a collaborative effort between the University of Newcastle, SAPHI engineering, and several government and private environmental agencies with financial support from the NSW Environmental Trust. The BIOMON team is at the forefront of developing AI-powered call recognisers for wildlife monitoring. The teams focus is on monitoring the activities of various wildlife species, including frogs, birds, koalas and other mammals. Monitoring these species is crucial in the face of global biodiversity declines.

By deploying AI-powered monitors, the BIOMON team can gather vast amounts of acoustic data on species activity patterns and vocalisations in real time. This data helps us understand when and how different species, like birds and frogs, are active. By knowing this, we can make better decisions to protect them and their habitats. BIOMON's work represents a significant step toward leveraging AI for biodiversity conservation.

The BIOMON workflow

The BIOMON workflow aims to reduce data handling by developing a pipeline that continually trains the AI algorithm with new data.

Pre-deployment: The BIOMON device is trained on acoustic data previously collected through existing projects like Frog Find and from external sources such as BirdNet and XenoCanto.

Field deployment: BIOMON is then deployed in an area of ecological interest and begins listening and recognising a variety of species vocalisations. Once BIOMON makes an identification, it informs the BIOMON team in real time, records a 5 second snippet of the call and uploads it directly to the relevant Zooniverse project page.

Zooniverse: Our fantastic Bird and Frog Finders then verify that BIOMON has identified the correct species and submit their findings to the research team.

Continual AI training: The BIOMON research team then compares BIOMON's classifications to the verifications made by community scientists and feeds these results back into BIOMON as a means on continually improving the AI algorithm and machine learning capabilities.

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The project background image of a Rosella comes courtesy of Louise Williams.
For more wonderful bird content and photography please follow her on Instagram at @law512