The 2040 Bird Monitor V2 (formerly known as the Cacophonometer) is the easiest way to measure how bird populations are changing. This device makes periodic sound recordings everyday and uploads them to the cloud, noting the time and location.
These recordings are analysed to calculate a Cacophony Index which is a measure of the amount of birdsong and how it changes over time, giving you an objective measure of the impact of predator control or reforestation.
The analysis also automatically identifies individual bird species, including:
- bellbird
- bittern
- black noddy
- blackbird
- crimson rosella
- dotterel
- fantail
- frog
- generic bird calls
- grey warbler
- human
- insect
- kiwi
- noise: this is a generic sound that isn't a bird or some other sound that we're trying to recognise.
- norfolk gerygone
- norfolk robin
- rifleman
- rooster
- ruru/morepork
- silvereye
- sooty tern
- sparrow
- whistler
- white tern
We hope to automatically identify other birds at some stage in the future. Please let us know if there are any in particular that you would like us to recognise. Although we can't identify these other birds now, it is still useful to make the recordings so they can be analysed retrospectively after we have the ability to automatically identify more birds.
The bird monitor will, by default, automatically delete any recordings that contain human voices.
This product includes:
- the bird monitor
-
a year of cloud storage. Additional years of cloud storage can be bought separately.
The Bird Monitor can be powered by
- a mains power supply,
- solar (solar panels sold separately),
- or am external battery (sold separately). This will last about a month.
If the Bird Monitor is within range of a Wi-Fi network it will automatically upload the recordings to the cloud. Alternatively you can insert a SIM card and it will upload the recordings if it has cell coverage (this can be supplied at $19.99/month). If there is no connectivity the Bird Monitor can store 2 years of recordings which will then be uploaded when the device connects to the internet.
Once the recordings are uploaded, they are analysed and you can review them on the Cacophony portal. You can search for any birds that have been identified, listen to the recordings, correct any of the automatically generated tags that are wrong. This will help improve the accuracy of the automatic identification. You can add notes and labels. You can also export the data to a spreadsheet for further analysis. Here's an example of an analysis that was done for predator free banks peninsula.
The bird monitor can be synchronized with other bird monitors so they all record at the same time. This is designed to get a snapshot across a piece of land and give you comfort if you hear a rare bird on two distant bird monitors at the same time, then it is actually two individuals.
Read a review of the Bird Monitor
Download the 2040 Bird Monitor operating manual
Read the latest news about the Bird Monitor.
This device has been developed by the team at The Cacophony Project. A proportion of the proceeds will be be donated to this not for profit group to further develop their technologies and help make New Zealand predator free.