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

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

This system is running BirdNET-go, which we found to be superior to alternative open-source platforms. It runs continuously, analysing 3-second audio clips and offering a portal with live detections. The system identifies species and saves audio clips and spectrograms for verification.

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!