When I first heard about BirdNET-Pi, I knew I wanted to give it a try — a way to automatically detect and identify bird species from my backyard using a simple Raspberry Pi without shelling out several hundred dollars for a dedicated device seemed like a good idea.

I decided to set up BirdNET-Pi on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, thinking it would be a relatively straightforward process. While it was a rewarding project, it also came with a few unexpected challenges, from tricky WiFi issues to microphone compatibility problems.

I wanted to share my experience: the hardware I used, the resources that helped, the obstacles I hit (and how I solved them), and some tips to make your own setup a little smoother – other people’s posts and forum threads were so helpful, I hope that someone is able to make their setup a little bit smoother from mine own small contribution.

Hardware Used

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2W
• MicroSD Card (U3)
• Power supply
• USB lavalier microphone + USB to Micro USB adapter
• Optional items I used
  • Micro-HDMI to Micro-HDMI cable (connected to standalone extra monitor)
  • Monitor for troubleshooting / setup
  • Keyboard with USB for troubleshooting / setup
  • Computer with SD card reader for imaging the SD card with raspberry pi per setup instructions
• WiFi router (with 2.4GHz band)

Software & Key Resources

• OS: Raspberry Pi OS Lite (Bullseye version)
  (Note: newer versions may now work, but Bullseye was stable for this project.)
• BirdNET-Pi GitHub Wiki guides:
  • RPi0W2 Installation Guide
  • Main Installation Guide
• Reddit resources and helpful threads:
  • Editing WiFi config file issues
  • BirdNET Pi does nothing troubleshooting

Initial Setup and Obstacles

WiFi Challenges

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2W doesn’t work reliably with 5GHz WiFi.
• Setting WiFi via editing wpa_supplicant.conf after imaging didn’t work — had to reimage with correct 2.4GHz settings baked into the image.
  • Note: I have had some success with this – when I’ve had connection issues (twice over about a week), I turned on the hotspot on my phone, edited the wpa_supplicant.conf file to match the hotspot, rebooted the pi and it worked…then edited the file again back to the main router WiFi, rebooted…and it worked. I can’t explain why.
    • This doesn’t take long, so if you think you need to reimage the SD card just do it.
• Additional router setting tweak: Set 2.4GHz WiFi mode to N only (not b/g/n mixed).
  • Note: I changed back to b/g/n mixed after a day or so and it ran fine, until it didn’t and I had to switch it back while testing my hotspot (see above).

Imaging and OS

• Selected an older, stable version of Pi OS (Bullseye) rather than the newest (because some reports mentioned issues with BirdNET-Pi installs).
• Make sure you’re selecting a 64-bit image – needed for BirdNET-Pi
• Be sure to click through the tabs before imaging and set the username, password, and enable SSH.

Installation and First Boot

• Installation of BirdNET-Pi after flashing SD card took ~30–45 minutes.
• Needed a reboot after install.
• Logging in via birdnetpi1.local (default login birdnet, no password).

Microphone Issues and Solutions

• Initial micro-USB mic didn’t work (USB recognition problems? Incompatibility?)
• Swapped to an older USB lavalier microphone using a USB to Micro USB adapter — worked immediately.
• Adjusted sound card settings (reference: Adjusting your sound card guide).

Software Tweaks and Key Fixes

• Strange bird results (wrong continents):
  • Double-checked Latitude and Longitude settings (were correct).
  • Switched BirdNET model to a newer version (older model gave bad results).
  • I wasn’t able to connect via the browser given the stock setup (birdnetpi1.local) after a day or two…I’ve since connected directly via the IP address.
    • If you’re not sure what your IP is, try looking in your router – it should identify as “birdnetpi” under device name. I’ve also seen some forum posts about issues with a hostname ending in a number which would make “birdnet1” problematic.

• Recording settings:
  • Changed recording length from 15s to 30s.
  • Matched extraction length to 30s.
• Privacy settings:
  • Lowered privacy threshold to 1% to allow more identifications.

Additional / Future Items

• I noticed that it seemed to be running slow (backlog of analysis) and got some help from handy ChatGPT to create a Crontab job to record the pi CPU core temperature. Sure enough it was getting close enough to throttling temps (80C I believe) at times during load spikes that I decided to look for a way to increase cooling.
  • Using what I had, I drilled some holes in the plastic case and am testing a 30mm fan connected to the 5V power pins. So far, very good results.

• I’d like to find/make a better case that actually holds the fan (fan is virtually silent)
  • Perhaps including the ability to turn it off and on only when a threshold temp is reached (say, 60C). That is not possible directly from the power pins, and would need a 3rd party board, or some wiring + transistor/resistor, I believe.

Over Time Backlinks Will Become Less Important – No Kidding

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said in a video that backlinks, over time, will become a little less important. Matt did say that backlinks in the Google ranking algorithm still have many years left in them.

Matt explained that Google is focusing a lot now on working on ways to determine if a web page is meets the expectations of an expert user. They do this currently by looking at the links to the page, the reputation of the site and pages and the quality of the content on that particular page.

Matt Cutts added that for the “next few years” links aren’t going anyway and will still be used for determining reputation. But overtime, Google will rely a little bit less on links for reputation purposes. Over Time Backlinks Will Become Less Important

So – hopefully this isn’t breaking news to anyone that reads this. However, it does serve an important notice for those working right now and who constantly hear things like “link building is dead” or “building links is a waste of time”. No it isn’t – this is basically exactly what this message tells us. The other side of this is that building authority and moving away from possibly penalizing ranking maneuvers will pay off in the long term as, of course, Google and others will work to provide the best content for the consumer…if possible.

Over Time Backlinks Will Become Less Important

Speaking of social engagement and the importance of various social networks – I can across this article at reelSEO that had a great graphic:

So – that’s a pretty hefty amount of views originating at Tumblr!

When Adobe released their Q4 2013 Video Benchmark report there was one golden nugget of information that went largely unnoticed. Social network Tumblr is responsible for referring more average video starts than YouTube, Twitter and Reddit.  Additionally, Tumblr is producing nearly identical video view rates as Facebook, with over 1/3rd of referred visits producing a video start.

Furthermore, more than half of visits referred from Tumblr to sports-related Websites, resulted in a video view. 56% – that’s an incredibly high conversion rate in anyone’s book and if any brands and marketers have shunned Tumblr as part of their online video marketing strategy, they need to sit up and pay attention to the new data.

If you’re leaving out Tumblr from your network, especially if you’re looking to drive videos then you’re doing it wrong…

See the full article at http://www.reelseo.com/tumblr-video-marketing/

As I was researching some local results for SEO services in the upstate area, I came across a wide range of services and quality. It was a little scary to think of a business owner wading into this, although my instinct is that most people would go with a service recommended by an associate or business partner.

For some of the smaller areas in upstate NY I came across SEO “firms” on the first page of results that were offering package directory submissions for hundreds of dollars per month – not a bad gig if you can land it, but certainly not a way to make your client rank! I’m fairly sure that some of these firms are just sites that no longer do much work – anyone still submitting massive directory blasts for a client will have some real issues – and fast.

Anyways, this made me think of how to educate clients and business owners. This is always a double edged sword – you can make someone dangerous with knowledge, but the lack of understanding can be just as bad. All things being equal I would rather my clients understand the basics and the current landscape – after all, it’s a function of marketing and they have a vested interest in being on top of what is going on in that segment of their industry (and in general).

As far as SEO and other forms of online optimization go, I usually see Moz referred to as a good place to start. I haven’t looked over their beginner’s guide in a couple of years, but I suppose that it isn’t the worst place to begin. I have this feeling that someone (but, who?!?) could put together a decent guide for business owners as a guide to online visibility. I use that word, visibility, since it isn’t always search engine visibility – if you can find quality traffic from a forum, social media, or other outlet, then great – go for it!

Something that would encapsulate perhaps the top 10-ish ways to gain visibility – onsite and offsite SEO being 2 of those. Off the top of my head I would think that several other topics would be:

• Email collection / targeting (build a list)
• Semantic markup (schema.org)
• Local directories
• National directories
• Content generation

That’s the short list off the top of my head – from there it’s a matter of coming up with what might be the most important. I think I’ll end up taking the list of what matters the most to my clients and write it up into a short PDF for use as a freebie incentive on my services website. Couldn’t hurt, and it would be so much better for them than coming across one of these relic SEO firms that will submit their site to search engine Hades…

There is an interesting question that I have seen asked in several locations without a clear answer – what is considered overuse of Schema.org markup? For example, would a local business owner be in trouble with search engines if their NAP was marked up in the footer of every page of their site?

 Initial Reaction

My initial reaction is that this is ridiculous. It’s common, and sensible, for business owners to have their contact and location information on their pages.

So, at the very least you wouldn’t want to endanger converting actual customers to appease search gods – right?

What To Do? Continue reading →