Comment by detourdog
10 hours ago
I have a situation with a couple of hundred chimney swifts. I want to set-up cameras to differentiate between individual swifts.
Any advice on how to go about this.
My current plan is to put multiple cameras at the mouth of the chimney opening which is about 42"x42"(1mx1m).
Does this sound realistic to anyone with experience?
There's a growing literature on individual animal identification from sound!
Here's one example: https://github.com/sammlapp/ovenbird-individual-recognition
My impression is that the hardest part is knowing whether or not you're actually doing a good job. For vocal learners (like the ovenbird example linked above), it seems to be pretty easy using embeddings from existing models (like perch or birdnet). For non-learning species (possibly including your swifts), you can use timbre clues to differentiate many individuals, but may not be able to really nail down individual identity.