Overview / Usage

Despite urbanisation, our back garden silently provides wildlife a chance to recuperate from our harsh urban landscape. Birds are able to fly into our garden - pecking away seeds from birdfeeders; pulling out and sucking worms from the soil; sneakily hunting bugs (that enjoy sticking onto plants and composts) for "yummy" snacks; having a wash by the pond; and even just sitting around sunbathing.

Some gardens attract certain types of birds, whilst some other, may attract other types. Wouldn't it be awesome to get a visual big picture of bird statistics that may help us improve our garden and the "bird wildlife community" as a whole? ("If we cannot measure, we cannot manage").

Inspiration: In the UK, there is this intuitive organised by RSPB (a charity) called The Big Garden Birdwatch (https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch), aiming to do exactly that - "Count the wildlife that's counting on you. We'd love to know what you saw during Big Garden Birdwatch". The way it works: you spend a day with your loved ones, sitting by the garden, watching wildlife (primarily birds) coming in and out, and jot down what you see. You then submit the survey result via the web portal - contributing in building that big picture of "the bird wildlife community".

The Problem: not everybody has the time to participate, or the bird identification skills - and as a result, vital bird statistics collection opportunity may be lost, or birds being mis-identified.

So here's an idea - A network of local RealSense Cameras sitting on small form factor computers that poll and feed wildlife statistics of our back gardens onto a cloud server, where data maybe stored, analysed, visualised, and used for education.

Could we add AI recommendation (e.g. this is how to increase your chance of getting 50% more birds and reduction of garden pests... etc). Could we integrate some kind of auto bird recognition software? Include sound recording too? Time of day? Temperature and humidity? Sensors and Actuators? The possibility is infinite... maybe start simple and stupid, then go complicated and clever?

What will you make.