Installation

We successfully setup our first BirdNET monitoring station in the Lake District National Park in August 2025. This served as a trial run for other projects, so we can show what the system is capable of and what value it can bring to different projects in the park. It also allows us to trial different settings and features so that we are confident the devices are running efficiently and getting the best results.

Hardware Setup

The device is built around a Raspberry Pi 5 with a high-quality USB microphone. This system is hard wired from the LDNP offices in Kendal, using their power and wired internet, so did not require a 4G LTE module for connectivity.

Software Configuration

The station runs BirdNET-Go, which we chose for its efficiency and excellent web interface. It operates continuously, analysing audio in 3-second clips and matching them against a neural network trained on thousands of bird species. Each detection is logged with a confidence score, a spectrogram, and a saved audio clip - making it straightforward to review and verify results.

BirdNET-Go also provides a live web portal where detections stream in as they happen, along with charts and summaries breaking down species activity by time of day, date, and confidence level. This makes it a genuinely useful monitoring tool rather than just a passive logger.

Statistics

Looking at the last 30 days, you can see there’s been almost 7000 detections and 36 unique species, with the majority of detections happening in the dawn chorus (between 5am and 8am). Blackbirds and Robins have dominated the detections, making up almost 50%, with Long-Tailed Tits just behind.

We will see how this changes as the colder weather comes in towards the new year and will keep you updated with any interesting patterns we notice!