BirdNET-Go

Local, cloud-free bird-song identification: 24/7 BirdNET inference on the GableCam’s audio, with a dashboard and detection clips.

Quick Reference

Property	Value
URL	https://birds.ops.eblu.me
Tailscale URL	https://birds.tail8d86e.ts.net
Namespace	birdnet-go
Image	ghcr.io/tphakala/birdnet-go pinned by digest (release 20260823)
Upstream	https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go
Manifests	argocd/manifests/birdnet-go/

Architecture

ReoLink Camera (GableCam)
    │ RTSP (audio: AAC @ 16 kHz)
    ▼
Frigate pod — go2rtc restream (:8554, cluster-local, unauthenticated)
    │ rtsp://frigate.frigate.svc.cluster.local:8554/gablecam?audio
    ▼
BirdNET-Go pod (ringtail k3s, CPU-only TFLite)
    ├── :8080  dashboard (Tailscale Ingress "birds")
    ├── :8090  Prometheus /metrics (prometheus-ringtail scrapes it)
    └── /data  SQLite + detection clips (local-path PVC, 5Gi)

• Source: consumes Frigate’s go2rtc restream with the ?audio track selector — audio only, no second RTSP session to the camera, no credentials.
• Config: the repo (birdnet-go-config.yml) is the source of truth. The web UI writes settings into an emptyDir, so UI edits do not survive a pod restart.
• Notifications: push notifications (ntfy) are deliberately disabled in the MVP; the shoutrrr provider block can be re-added to birdnet-go-config.yml later.
• Routing: Tailscale Ingress birds → Caddy on indri maps birds.ops.eblu.me (caddy_services in ansible/roles/caddy/defaults/main.yml, applied by provision-indri).

Known limitation

The Reolink microphone is fixed at 16 kHz, so real spectral content tops out at 8 kHz. BirdNET runs at 48 kHz and BirdNET-Go resamples up, but high-pitched species (kinglets, waxwings, some warblers) will be under-detected. Fine for the common 2–8 kHz band. The upgrade path, if this ever matters, is a dedicated RTSP mic (BirdNET-Go supports ESP32-based ones) — not camera surgery.