Mastodawn

Mike Gerdts 4d ago

Can anyone recommend a combination of hardware/software/host for webcams that I could point at some heavily trafficked backyard bird feeders? I’m about to enter a period of reduced mobility and would love to be able both to keep watching and share the joy.

(edit: ideally, something that can stream publicly as well as be viewed in-house)

Parsingphase 4d ago

Some great responses on this thread, so here's my existing wildlife vids for thanks & context: https://spectra.video/c/parsing_wildlife/videos

North Shore Wildlife

Mostly trailcam footage from my back yard on the North Shore in Massachusetts. Occasionally Bird Buddy or DSLR videos

Spectra Video

Parsingphase 4d ago

Related, does anyone know how you'd obtain and run something like the iNaturalist image classification model locally? It's an area of tech I've never really got into, and it seems to be harder to discover now LLMs are sucking all the air out of the AI space (not to mention screwing up web search & cluttering the internet with trash)

@parsingphase I have some Reolink cameras for watching my cats when I'm not home, and I've been satisfied with them

Douglas McMillan 4d ago

@parsingphase For software, I seem to remember Frigate doing some bird recognition, although I may be mis-remembering

Douglas McMillan 4d ago

@parsingphase Remembered correctly. It does seem to do it. I use Frigate as an add-on to HomeAssistant.

https://docs.frigate.video/configuration/bird_classification/

Bird Classification | Frigate

Bird classification identifies known birds using a quantized Tensorflow model. When a known bird is recognized, its common name will be added as a sub_label. This information is included in the UI, filters, as well as in notifications.

Parsingphase 4d ago

@Nerdfest oh that’s handy by itself, I wonder if I can feed my trail cam videos to it somehow. I’d been looking for something usable as a bird model.

Webber-e-bop 4d ago

@parsingphase I have recently been looking at ESP32 devices, so ofc I thought about that first

But more realisticly you could look into getting a camera server (with file storage, or seperate file storage, if you wanna watch what happened before), it could just be a old computer or like a NUC.

And then get some (preferably wired) ethernet cameras with good enough quality for your liking to set up and use with the server.

I have seen these servers remotely cast both live feed and recorded footage to a phone, using a home-hosted website, an app, or something like that.

Mike Gerdts 4d ago

@parsingphase my recent search for "cloud not required" cameras led me to Reolink. My needs were for indoor WiFi, so I went with the E1 Pro. Home Assistant docs were helpful in picking a model. You can stream with the app (anywhere) or with RTSP if on the same network. RTSP streams can be opened with VLC, which is a nice way to get it onto a big screen. Streaming with the app is supposedly end-to-end encrypted, just in case you are worried about others snooping on your birds. :)

Mike Gerdts 4d ago

@parsingphase I was somewhat surprised to see that pretty much all the cameras support pan and tilt with object tracking. Some have meaningful zoom - particularly the outdoor ones with higher megapixel sensors. This could be useful if you are needing to keep an eye on multiple feeders.

Parsingphase 4d ago

@mgerdts thanks! Reolink seems to be a name that constantly comes up in this area, will have to check them out.

@Ostdrossel does a lot with cameras and wildlife…

webonaire 4d ago

@parsingphase
After getting frustrated with companies that cripple features behind paid subscription upgrades and questionable privacy practices, I'll probably go with Reolink when it's time to replace my Blink.

[Official] Reolink Kameras und Systeme für Zuhause & Gewerbe

Reolink Deutschland bietet zuverlässige Überwachungskameras und -systeme – vertraut von über 2 Mio. Nutzern und bekannt aus Top-Medien.

MrPistachios 4d ago

@parsingphase any decent security cameras and if powered through poe then you need a poe switch, feed that into a PC with frigate for detections. I use unifi poe cameras and a dream machine pro which does the same thing but if I learned about frigate before I probably would have gone that route

@parsingphase fit i possible to buy inexpensive CCTV systems with an HD+ DVR and cameras for not a lot of money.

PoE means one single cable to the camera instead of one for data and one for power.

If cameras go inside, normal ethernet csbles can be run for PoE or can use WiFi and local PSUs instead. It depends on what is easiest for you.

Whichever means you should be able to watch in realtime. Tthere are also kits that can be built from Pis/SBCs that can be built to act as cameras on your network.

Oliver Seiler 4d ago

@parsingphase I haven't had much luck with Frigate but if you have an audio feed, BirdNet-Go works amazingly well, and can export to birdweather

https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go

GitHub - tphakala/birdnet-go: Realtime BirdNET soundscape analyzer

Realtime BirdNET soundscape analyzer. Contribute to tphakala/birdnet-go development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub