A live bird collage from your window.
See it running at bird.onethreenine.net.
| Qty | Description | Price | Link | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raspberry Pi (4B / 5 / Zero 2W) | ~$35-80 | Raspberry Pi | See note for RPi20 |
| 1 | Micro SD Card (≥32 GB) | ~$10 | Amazon | |
| 1 | USB lavalier microphone | $16.95 | Amazon | |
| 1 | Pi power supply | ~$10 | - |
Optional: a Gemini API key to restyle illustrations, an eBird API key to filter species by region.
Use Raspberry Pi Imager. Pick Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit). In the customisation dialog set:
- Username
- WiFi SSID + password
- Hostname:
birdnet - Enable SSH with password auth
Plug the USB mic into the Pi. Place the capsule in a window or mount it outside. Boot.
Installer assumes passwordless sudo (Raspberry Pi OS Lite default - if you've tightened it, run sudo raspi-config -> System Options -> restore the default first).
ssh <your-username>@birdnet.local
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Twarner491/AvianVisitors/avian-visitors/newinstaller.sh | bashClones this fork, installs BirdNET-Pi, symlinks the AvianVisitors overlay into the Caddy web root. Takes 20-40 minutes. Reboots when done.
Collage: http://birdnet.local/. Stock BirdNET-Pi UI: http://birdnet.local/index.php. The menu button in the top right opens an admin overlay with settings, system, log, and tool panels.
The repo ships with 450 bundled illustrations. To restyle or add region-specific species:
export GEMINI_API_KEY='your-key'
# Re-render every species in BirdNET-Pi's model:
python3 ~/BirdNET-Pi/avian/scripts/pregen.py --labels ~/BirdNET-Pi/model/labels.txt --force
# Or filter to species observed in your eBird region:
export EBIRD_API_KEY='your-key'
python3 ~/BirdNET-Pi/avian/scripts/pregen.py \
--labels ~/BirdNET-Pi/model/labels.txt \
--ebird-region US-CAStyle lives in avian/scripts/prompt.template.md. Edit, re-run with --force.
See avian/forwarding/ for three independent recipes:
- Cloudflare Tunnel for a public HTTPS URL.
- Home Assistant REST sensor that exposes the latest detection.
- MQTT bridge that publishes every new detection.
avian/ # everything we add to BirdNET-Pi
├── frontend/ # static HTML/JS/CSS for the collage
├── assets/ # 450 bundled illustrations + cutouts + masks
├── api/ # PHP shims served by BirdNET-Pi's PHP-FPM
├── scripts/ # pregen.py + editable prompt template
└── forwarding/ # optional HA / MQTT / Cloudflare configs
Everything outside avian/ is upstream BirdNET-Pi.
CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0, inherited from BirdNET-Pi. Non-commercial use only. See the BirdNET-Pi README for full Cornell attribution.