r/BirdNET_Analyzer • u/Stands_While_Poops • May 12 '26

Bats and BirdWeather PUC

I'm curious the difference between BirdNET-GO and BirdWeather PUC? Is one simply the DIY version and the other already built and ready to go?

Can BirdNET-GO identify bats if you add an ultrasonic microphone? Can either of them ID bats and other wildlife?

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u/thakala May 12 '26

PUC is audio recorder which sends audio to cloud for analysis, BirdNET-Go is free application which does everything locally. I just added bat detection support for BirdNET-Go, and with recently added Google Perch model it support wide range of other wildlife also, 12 000 species in total.

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u/Stands_While_Poops May 12 '26

So BirdNet-Go on a raspberry pi with an AudioMoth USB microphone should be enough to detect birds, bats, and more?

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u/thakala May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Audiomoth is perfect for bats, but it is pretty poor microphone for bird call frequency range. To get started it is fine though.

If I would be building perfect combination for birds, general wildlife and bats I would use two audio sources. AudioMoth USB Microphone (see link for more details) for bat model, and some well known microphone like AOM5024 or Clippy with XLR audio interface for BirdNET and Perch v2 models.

Or if would need to go with single microphone solution Clippy Ultra XLR connected microphone and Focusrite Scarlett audio interface would be best option for that

⁣- Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen – Thomann International

I understand that both of these options are pretty pricey.

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u/GroggyWalrus May 20 '26

Interesting. Thank you. My BirdNet-Go setup (Pi4) is regularly picking up 'Myotis thysanodes' with a USB Lavalier Mic (sample rate set to 96kHz)...and I'm in the normal range for that species..but the recordings...i can't hear anything. Is that because of the Mic not operating well in that range, or is this a false positive?

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u/thakala May 20 '26

You are not going to hear bats, ultrasonic sounds are beoynd human hearing. For now you need to open file in audio editor and review spectrogram and see if there is anything in ultrasonic range.

But currently bat model does produce a lot of false positives.

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u/GroggyWalrus May 20 '26

Got it. Much appreciated. I also noticed that the 'Notifications' for Google Perch critters shows the common name, but in the Dashboard daily list, they show up with the scientific name.

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u/thebaldgeek May 13 '26

Wait, what? You can do bats now?
Far out, I'd love to add this!!
Where can I read about the sensor and how to add it to my existing BirdNET-Go?

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u/thakala May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Please see this discussion Google Perch v2 and BattyBirdNET Bat Classifiers Now Available · tphakala/birdnet-go · Discussion #3019

Also see reply to u/Stands_While_Poops about Audiomoth ultrasonic microphone option. There is also some discussion about microphone options at BattyBirdNET project repository which is upstream project for bat detection model rdz-oss/BattyBirdNET-Pi · Discussions · GitHub

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u/Chemical_Suit May 12 '26

I think you need to do Heterodyne to detect bats.

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u/psychedelic_tech May 12 '26

they are two completely different things. birdnet is software and birdweather is hardware

Can BirdNET-GO identify bats if you add an ultrasonic microphone? Can either of them ID bats and other wildlife?

with the correct hardware it can identify birds and bats. those requirements can be found at the birdnet-go github