Ever went hiking and wondered what kind of birds are making those chirping sounds along the way? Curious to know what kind of birds visit your bird bath in the backyard? The Scribe Labs BirdWeather PUC is a standalone device that can recognize birds based on the sound they make, allowing it to identify the species of birds in the vicinity whether you can see them or not.
Billed as a “living library of bird vocalizations,” the device can pick up and isolate individual bird sounds in your immediate environment using a database of over 6,000 global species, allowing you to quickly find out what birds are in the area in real-time. Whether you set it up in the backyard, take it to the park, or strap it on your pack while hiking the local trails, this thing lets you quickly get acquainted with the local bird population, so you can decide whether you want to stop and take out the binoculars to do a little birdwatching.
The Scribe Labs BirdWeather PUC is a palm-sized nature recorder equipped with dual microphones for picking up sounds in your immediate surroundings. There’s an onboard SD card where the system stores the data, giving you a way to review everything it has recorded for those times you leave it unattended. If you want to get real-time information from the device, simply press the integrated button to sync it with the companion app (available on both phone and PC), so you can see what birds it recognizes while you make your way around a trail.
With a Wi-Fi connection, the device can automatically communicate with BirdNET, a cloud-based neural network that automatically filters the audio and identifes any birds in the recordings. It continuously listens so long as it’s turned on, too, with no downtimes, so there’s no chance it will miss any birds whose vocalizations show up in any of the recordings. According to the outfit, BirdNET won’t just identify over 6,000 birds, it can also recognize man-made sounds (e.g. engines, road works) and some non-avian animal species.
The Scribe Labs BirdWeather PUC is fitted with other sensors that allow it to detect temperature, humidity, pressure, air quality, tVOC, CO2, and light, as well as a GPS chip that lets it pinpoint the exact location where you picked up each bird sound. The whole thing is housed in weatherproof enclosure that should allow you to use it outdoors with no worries of damaging the device. It can be mounted on a tripod, so you should be able to set it up using standard equipment, whether at home, in the campsite, or a wooded park area. Alternatively, it can be mounted on a hook or strapped down to a pack, giving you multiple set up options. It runs on three AA batteries, with a USB slot that you can use for recharging (if you use rechargeable cells).
Aside from reviewing your own recordings, the app also gives you access to various data on the BirdNET system. That means, you can get information on the presence of different species of birds in other places around the world as they’ve been detected in the system, which can be handy information for people who take to birding as more than a weekend hobby.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Scribe Labs BirdWeather PUC. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $199.