With artificial intelligence being the bête noir of the moment, there are some projects using it which maybe don’t bring much to the table. So it’s nice to see one that uses it in a creative way, and delivers something new. [arnegiacomo]’s e-paper screen is a great example, as it draws a picture in real time of whatever birds are outside.
Behind the quite large screen sits a Raspberry Pi 5, and on that is BirdNet-Go, an AI-powered birdsong classifier. A USB microphone catches the birdsong, and Birdnet comes up with the species. The birds on the display are then those species as pictures from 19th century bird spotters guides, assembled into a collage. You can even see what the current set of birds it hears are, live, and they are a representative cross section of the European birds you’d find in Norway where it’s located.
We like this project, both for the bird book vibe it gives, and the creative use of machine classification. Surprisingly this isn’t the first project in this field we have seen over the years.
Oh, that’s a really nice project!
This is very classy. I could never care about birds but I appreciate the project. I have a friend who built a Raspi device running birdnet and installed it in a nearby forest
Correction, I do care about birds, but only as long as they’re in my plate!
Also similar to https://hackaday.com/2026/08/08/track-bird-visitors-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-a-usb-mic/
Was thinking exactly the same!
“hhuuuh, 3 weeks ago we had this covered already”
Definitely similar, but I appreciate that this one showcases human-drawn art rather than having a diffusion model create each bird picture. The technical writeup for the other post is very nicely done though; I like how it explains the packing algorithm.
You could combine it with a nerf minigun to fight birds which are destroying insects.
It’s “bête noire” (literally black beast) not “bête noir” (which means nothing or could be understood as “stupid black person” or “common black color”)
Why would you do that? They all belong in the ecosystem and it is not our place to interfere any more than we have.
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I have an acquaintance who has a similar setup.
Apparently it identifies other wildlife too, but labels them as birds…
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7d6e9d49-38bf-4df7-8f63-e52b13b579c1
I’d like to point out the distinction between automatically drawing a picture and “automatically”(if you want to call spectral analysis automatic) cueing a pre-drawn picture that has been associated with that waveform. But anyhow, bravo.
(“Bête” is feminine, so “Noir” (the (absence of) color) takes a final e : “bête noire”)
Now its THESE kinds of things that are going to make AI into a truly new medium. All media mediums start out emulating the mediums that came before it. Vaudeville turned into movies and then tv that had vaudeville type shows and that evolved into sitcoms and dramas, same with art. I reas an article that said all of this much more elegantly lol, i can’t remember the specifics but thats the thrust of it
Now its THESE kinds of things that are going to make AI into a truly new medium. All media mediums start out emulating the mediums that came before it. Vaudeville turned into movies and then tv that had vaudeville type shows and that evolved into sitcoms and dramas, same with art. I reas an article that said all of this much more elegantly lol, i can’t remember the specifics but thats the thrust of it
It’s all fun until you see Mothman
Large numbers of mostly silent Canadian geese leaving their poo on the school grounds everyday. Can’t harass or annoy them either because of migratory bird act. The other day with full practice going on all the brass band instruments were sitting on the side lines where they poop. Finger sized! Not gonna toot that horn! We need robot “dogs” to chase them off before they land.