Acoustic sensors enable efficient and non-invasive monitoring of a wide range of species, including many that are difficult to monitor in other ways. Although they were initially limited in application scope largely due to cost and hardware constraints, the development of low-cost, open-source models like the Audiomoth in recent years has increased access immensely and opened up new avenues of research. For example, some teams are using them to identify illicit human activities through the detection of associated sounds, like gunshots, vehicles, or chainsaws (e.g. OpenEars).
With this relatively novel dimension of wildlife monitoring rapidly advancing in both marine and terrestrial systems, it is crucial that we identify and share information about the utility and constraints of these sensors to inform efforts. A recent study identified advancements in hardware and machine learning applications, as well as early development of acoustic biodiversity indicators, as factors facilitating progress in the field. In terms of limitations, the authors highlight insufficient reference sound libraries, a lack of open-source audio processing tools, and a need for standardization of survey and analysis protocols. They also stress the importance of collaboration in moving forward, which is precisely what this group will aim to facilitate.
If you're new to acoustic monitoring and want to get up to speed on the basics, check out these beginner's resources and conversations from across the WILDLABS platform:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Listening to Nature: The Emerging Field of Bioacoustics, Adam Welz
- Ecoacoustics and Biodiversity Monitoring, RSEC Journal
- Monitoring Ecosystems through Sound: The Present and Future of Passive Acoustics, Ella Browning and Rory Gibb
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- AudioMoth user guide | Tessa Rhinehart
- Audiomoth and Natterjack Monitoring (UK) | Stuart Newson
- Help with analysing bat recordings from Audiomoth | Carlos Abrahams
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- "How do I perform automated recordings of bird assemblages?" | Carlos Abrahams, Tech Tutors
- "How do I scale up acoustic surveys with Audiomoths and automated processing?" | Tessa Rhinehart, Tech Tutors
- Acoustic Monitoring | David Watson, Ruby Lee, Andy Hill, and Dimitri Ponirakis, Virtual Meetups
Want to know more about acoustic monitoring and learn from experts in the WILDLABS community? Jump into the discussion in our Acoustic Monitoring group!
Header image: Carly Batist
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi there Camilo, What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options: ... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 7 months ago | |
I have been waiting for journal club to come back!! 10000% down.I agree with @StephODonnell, would love it to come back!!! And now that variety hour is happening, that's more of... |
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Acoustics, Community Base | 1 year 8 months ago | |
Alex,which one of thosehttps://selectronix.co.uk/collections/waterproof-acoustic-vents would be the appropriate for the Audiomoth case?Agus |
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Acoustics | 1 year 9 months ago | |
Hey maya, If you're free - come along to our Variety Hour call next week and ask folks there too. We're keeping the last 10 mins open for people to jump up and put out calls... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 9 months ago | |
@Andrew_Hill I wonder if you could let us know more about the time keeping difference btw the regular AudioMoth and the HydroMoth (which is said to do better)? |
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Acoustics, Marine Conservation | 1 year 9 months ago | |
The Bioacoustics Stack Exchange has now made it past the private beta stage and onto public beta as of July 26! This means that the site... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 9 months ago | |
Good afternoon,My name is Maya and I am writing to you as an intern at 'Sounding Images', a Berlin-based production company https://www.... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 10 months ago | |
I don't know if this was resolved, but if you copy this code into a python file in the same folder as your .wav files and then run it, it should rename everything. Try testing it... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 10 months ago | |
The Bioacoustics Stack Exchange has reached the Beta stage and is LIVE! It is also in a critical... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 10 months ago | |
Hi just bringing this thread back up to attention: the bioacoustics stackexchange is now up and running in beta form, and could use as much participation as possible to ensure its... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 10 months ago | |
Hmm 20kg raised 5m would only buy you less than half an AA battery assuming 100% efficiency. Lame, so much for that idea. |
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Acoustics | 1 year 10 months ago | |
@gracieermi & I are happy to announce the latest update to the Conservation Tech Directory, bringing our total resources in the... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Drones, eDNA & Genomics, Remote Sensing & GIS, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 10 months ago |
What value would you place on regular status updates from your acoustic recorder?
23 September 2021 1:13am
18 October 2021 7:36am
Hi Astaras, I'm Mark Calder one of the engineers at Frontier Labs. Yes we think that the energy used in sending a message by satellite once per week will get quickly replaced with the solar panel. We plan to send a short message with battery capacity remaining and card space remaining once per week typically. Probably also that sound was recorded in the last recording period. That is the microphone signal output was not flat fine. That can happen if the mic is broken off for example.
Obviously if you don't get a message from one of your recorders at the set time then that's cause for concern. It can take 4 hours to aquire a satellite and send the message though so you'd probably wait until the next day to make that judgement. The battery in a Solar BAR lasts for about a month with 24/7 recording if there is no more solar so it should be able to send out messages during long rain periods.
We'll be starting this project later this year. If you can think of other info to have in the messages please let me know. My email is [email protected] if that's more convenient.
18 October 2021 4:35pm
Hi Nicole--
We've already chatted about this function, and I think the answer is "quite a bit" for a lot of deployments. The more accurately the proposed function tracked microphone status the better, though even something to the effect of "I'm still getting a signal from this microphone" even if there was no more nuanced quality information than a yes/no would still be better than what much of the field is doing right now.
I think the question is how much this would add to the cost of the unit + how much whatever data service you're using would add to the ongoing costs but I'd imagine that Frontier are still figuring out those specifics.
Tech Tutors: How do I analyze large acoustic datasets using PAMGuard?
14 October 2021 3:42pm
Technical Difficulties: What’s The Worst That Can Happen?
12 October 2021 12:00am
Arbimon terms of service
7 October 2021 5:24pm
8 October 2021 8:36pm
Hi David!
It sounds like Rainforest Connection and its affiliates reserve the right to use your acoustic data and its labels to train and/or test sound identification algorithms.
In my opinion, Rainforest Connection is unlikely to "scoop" the direct ecological or conservation research outputs of your data, which could be what your collaborators would be most concerned about.
However, if one of your research goals is methods development (e.g. publishing trained sound classifiers or experimenting with different machine learning approaches), you may want to directly ask Rainforest Connection for clarification on this part of their terms of service.
Sidenote: one the most significant bottlenecks for developing accurate machine learning classifiers is a lack of labeled data. The bioacoustics community would certainly benefit from the open publication of more labeled data!
Tessa
11 October 2021 3:24pm
Tessa--
Thanks for chiming in. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, both about what RFCX is likely to actually be doing and about the need for more open labeled datasets. However, unfortunately, a lot of times the academic incentives of individual research groups don't align well with the needs of the field more broadly.
This honestly might be a good topic for a broader discussion: how do we balance the ideals of a strongly FOSS-influenced conservation tech field with the incentives of academia, which include both publishing and (in the case of some universities including mine) monetizing data and research.
How do I analyze large acoustic datasets using PAMGuard?
7 October 2021 12:00am
Bioacoustics Webinar: Creatures of the Night
4 October 2021 12:00am
Incidental recording of people (in an IRB context)
30 June 2021 5:13pm
2 July 2021 3:01pm
I haven't needed to go through an IRB for acoustic collections yet, but I have had landowners ask this. My response has been that we filter out incidental conversations with ML automatically. For an IRB, you will probably need to be specific about how and when you do this. The responses I have had have been very mixed and any objections are based on incorrect assumptions and knowledge....or a flat out "no way" before even hearing how it works - usually after hearing the words "continuous recording" on their property. Others are happy and excited to see what is going on. It seems to be an educational task and it isn't easy amidst the current privacy debates, not to mention political climate.
Please keep the board updated. I'm sure your IRB experience with acoustic monitoring deployments will be valuable to others here.
22 September 2021 7:16am
We are filming with the Australian Acoustic Observatory soon with one of the Solar BARs we created (it's continuously recording for four years!) and were wondering if recording our people chat would constitute audio vandalism? lol
Deep learning module for PAMGuard
19 August 2021 2:07pm
27 August 2021 4:32pm
Thanks heaps for the info @jamie_mac ...looks really cool and the blog is amazing too!
I dare say you might see quite a few excited responses from the community!
All the best,
Rob
1 September 2021 6:37pm
Thanks Rob! Hopefully it turns out to be a useful tool.
Just to reiterate for folk, there are links to tutorials and a beta version in the blog post.
How do I use animal-borne imaging technology in marine and terrestrial environments?
16 August 2021 12:00am
Webinar: Bioacoustics and Engagement
19 July 2021 12:00am
WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season 3
6 July 2021 12:00am
Kickstarter for Terra acoustic monitoring project
4 June 2021 4:09pm
GroupGets: μMoth Now Available
27 May 2021 12:00am
Tools similar to BirdNet for analyzing avian recordings?
13 May 2020 5:03pm
24 April 2021 8:50am
Almost a year since the original post, but just commenting that I've been having some pretty good success with BirdNET which has been working fine in the past few weeks I've been using it.
7 May 2021 6:51pm
Dear Thomas I'm really interested by your experience, how did you use birdnet?
I would like to monitor a area for a certain amount of time with birdnet automatically identifying the bird around, is it possible to do that? Or did you record a sound bird for a while, then transfer the audio file into bird net and manually identify each bird sound?
All the best, Antoine
11 May 2021 9:25pm
Tessa Rhinehart has developed a great compilation of bioacoustic analysis platforms, software, etc. with basic functionality on each. It's openly-available on Github -https://github.com/rhine3/audiomoth-guide/blob/master/resources/analysis-software.md.
I personally use RavenPro (from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), Kaleidoscope (from Wildlife Acoustics), and Arbimon (from Rainforest Connection) in different capacities. I've also heard good things about PAMguard (developed firstly in the marine mammal community) and Sonic Visualizer.
BirdNET on local Windows machine?
18 September 2020 9:44am
26 October 2020 3:29pm
Got it running on Linux now.
9 May 2021 2:49pm
Dear Robin,
So what is your workflow regarding the utilisation of birdnet to analyse sound bird?
All the best,
10 May 2021 8:13am
Dear Antoine,
collect sound data (.wav) with the audiorecorder (audiomoth) of your choice.
Point the script https://github.com/kahst/BirdNET-Lite to the location of
your data storage (MicroSD) attached to the Linux machine, wait one day and see the magic happen ;-)
Greetings,
Robin
Recommendations for a waterproof microphone for bats and birds?
20 April 2021 9:01am
26 April 2021 7:30am
Thank you, Akiba! If we go down the road of constructing the outer casing ourselves, we will consider this advice! Right now we were hoping a bit more for an off the shelf model.
Cheers!
26 April 2021 11:59am
No problem. Good luck with your project :)
Akiba
7 May 2021 2:06pm
I didn't see this post until the digest came out, but if you still need some comments...
I suggest asking this question on one of the sound recordists forums. The people on [email protected] are generally quite knowledgeable on microphones and protecting them...and quite friendly :) Ivano Pelicella (Dodotronics) monitors that forum and will happy to chime in if you have a question on their mics. Or you can email him.
Regarding the Momimic...it uses the Knowles FG23629, but I see what you mean about the lack of much specs. This is their datasheet, if you don't have it - https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/knowles/FG-23629-D65/810005
The Momimic seems like a good choice for what you described and it's off the shelf, although I haven't used it personally. Maybe email Ivano for some help.
Good luck! I hope you will be posting your progress and results!
Reducing wind noise in AudioMoth recordings
23 June 2020 2:26am
23 June 2020 2:40am
Hi Daniella,
I don't know specifically about AudioMoth, but people have had very good results reducing or eliminating wind noice on things like GoPros or iPhones, etc. using simple Microphone Windscreen foam. You can buy ones for headsets and the like pretty cheap (10 for $1 for the little ones). You can just cut them up and either tape them in place on the inside of the case or rubber band them on the outside.
Also, if the sounds you are trying to extract are still audible, but hard to pull out of the noise, you might also be able to post-process the wind noise out. Wind tends to be heavy in low frequencies, so depending on what you are looking for you might be able to just filter the lower frequencies out, or use an open source tool like Audacity. But if your signal is buried deep within the noise, these tools might also corrupt your target signal.
Hope this helps.
Drue
29 June 2020 5:55pm
I second what Drue said on both fronts. Using a windscreen for any microphone is really helpful in reducing wind interference. For the Audiomoth's size, you could probably use a lavalier mic windscreen of some sort inside your case. I post-process wind interference out sometimes using bandpass filters in RavenPro (cutting out low frequencies <1kHz usually gets most of it at the site I work at) but this will depend on the frequencies of your target sounds.
28 April 2021 8:39pm
furry "dead cat" covers and blimps work best for cutting down wind noise, and a very good spectral noise repair tool, though it's paid, iZotope RX8. There is a de-wind module, but you can also teach it what to repair. I believe Davinci Resolve and Adobe Audition might also have wind reduction tools, but my go-to is iZotope RX8.
New Papers: Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation
22 April 2021 12:00am
Webinar: Mission Possible: Deployment
21 April 2021 12:00am
Webinar: Acoustic Tag Technologies and Applications
20 April 2021 12:00am
BirdCLEF 2021 Kaggle Challenge
19 April 2021 12:00am
Webinar Series
14 April 2021 1:38pm
Organize audio files by frequency
6 February 2021 3:58am
28 February 2021 12:22am
This may not be immediately useful, but I really like this interactive visualisation of bird calls organised by similarity (requires a desktop browser to run the experiment):
https://experiments.withgoogle.com/bird-sounds
They do provide the source code so it may be possible recreate this with your data, but it does seem daunting. One thing to note with these similarity measurements is the pattern or clustering is dependent on the input data. The outcome of this is you may end up with a very different order and pattern with only a sligltyly different set of input data.
18 March 2021 7:00pm
As Carlos mentioned, the R packages would be good if you're just looking for summary stats averaged over the whole 10s of the fiie. You would just read that directory into R and load seewave, tuneR, warbleR (I think monitoR may also have this functionality). Perhaps helpful links -
seewave - http://rug.mnhn.fr/seewave/
tuner - https://rdrr.io/rforge/tuneR/
warbler - https://marce10.github.io/warbleR/
9 April 2021 3:55pm
I'm assuming that by "sort by frequencies" you mean the frequency of the call itself, not the frequency of the audio recording (for example, a call at 1KHz vs a recording at a sample rate of 48KHz). My recommendation would be to use R (seewave/tuneR) to generate mean spectra of the recordings (meanspec function) and you can then use those mean spectra to figure out the peak frequency range and sort by that.
Survey Invite: Open-source acoustic monitoring technology
9 April 2021 12:00am
The 2021 #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Community Highlights
25 March 2021 12:00am
Take the survey: your needs and priorities for (open-source) acoustic monitoring technology
25 February 2021 12:45pm
22 March 2021 11:29pm
Hey everyone, only 5 DAYS LEFT to take the survey! We’re just short of 100 respondents now, and would be great to get as much coverage as possible! Please consider responding if you haven’t done so already, and spread to your contacts who might be interested.
Responses so far show a clear support for the open-source option for acoustic monitoring technology. Almost 70% would be willing to spend time or resources to learn (or have someone in their team learning) the skills that allow you to customise open-source acoustic devices. More than half thought it would be useful to have a “developer version” of an acoustic device (that you can tinker with, and integrate/connect to other devices).
Please contribute your thoughts to help the acoustic community design the open-source monitoring technology of the future!
24 March 2021 4:13am
Hi everyone, we’ve decided to extend the survey for 3 more weeks, until the 18th of April!
That will be the final date (the online survey tool we use is not free, and we’ve got budget limitations :-)
We’re now over 100 respondents from all continents, but we do have significant gaps (e.g. SE Asia and China, many parts of Africa) which we would love to cover. There is also a slight bias towards terrestrial acoustics (only 18% report working in aquatic habitats), but this might just reflect the number of people working in terrestrial vs aquatic acoustics generally. In any case, would also love to get more respondents from the wet side of life. Please participate and spread to your contacts.
And big thanks to those of you who’ve already participated!!
Funding Opportunity: COVID-19 Science Fund
10 March 2021 12:00am
Sound library for small terrestrial mammals
31 January 2021 1:42pm
12 February 2021 6:05pm
Stuart, that is really cool! Are these clips translated into audible frequency range?
12 February 2021 8:26pm
Hi Phil, the playable spectrograms have been translated into the audible frequency range (by playing in 10 x time expansion), becuase the small mammal calls are mainly above our hearing range, but a copy of the original wav files can be downloaded from the web site.
12 February 2021 9:15pm
Ah, perfect. I was wondering why I never hear those calls!
That's really nice work, thanks so much for sharing!
How do I strategically allocate drones for conservation?
8 February 2021 12:00am
Audiomoth and Natterjack Monitoring (UK)
23 December 2020 8:16pm
31 January 2021 2:09pm
Hi Sarah, I'm curently working on the sound identification of native and introduced frogs in the UK. I need another season of recordings, and a lot more recordings of Natterjack's, but my aim is to build these into the BTO Acoustic Pipeline hopefully later this year - alongside bats, small mammals, bush-crickets etc to also identify these automatically when they are recorded as 'by-catch.' https://www.bto.org/pipeline.
31 January 2021 3:26pm
Hi Stuart, What sample rate do you think you could go down to? We're interested in a low-power AudioMoth firmware version for this application. Alex
31 January 2021 4:38pm
Hi Alex, I'm not sure what problems there could be with aliasiing and harmonics using a low sample rate, and may depend I guess on how the recordings are processed later on, but I've enclosed a spectrogram of a typical recording below, and can send you some example recordings if useful. Perhaps to use a sample rate of about 10 kHz.., but it's not something that I think about - I always use an excessive sample rate (24 kHz for anurans).
18 October 2021 5:41am
Our research typically involves mountainous areas within protected areas in Greece.