Bird Identification

This is a basic interface to the audio and image files at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Code

The file "base.py" is basic script for starting things up in a python terminal. Python3 is recommended.

The functions for testing your knowledge are as follows:

audio_quiz(birds, key='name')
image_quiz(birds, key='name', figsize=(7,7))
video_quiz(birds, key='name')
taxonomy_quiz(birds, key='order')

Each function requires a pandas dataframe as an input (birds), with an optional parameter called key. For the audio, image, and video quizzes, this key can be from ['name', 'order', 'family', 'species'], while for the taxonomy quiz if must be from ['order', 'family', 'species']. The figsize parameter allows you to change the image size.

The video links have a limited duration of about ~1 hour. If the links stop working, simply exit the quiz (type "q" and hit return) and call the function again.

Functions that can be used to create dataframes are the following:

get_birds_by_family(*families)
get_birds_by_group(*groups)
get_birds_by_order(*orders)
get_birds_by_name(*names)

Each function can take a series of strings referring to birds of the designated type. Thus a few usages are the following

waterfowl = get_birds_by_group('geese', 'swans', 'ducks')
waterfowl = get_birds_by_order('anseriformes')
waterfowl = get_birds_by_family('anatidae')

If you want to quiz yourself by looking at various images of waterfowl, and increase the figure size, this can be done as follows in a python terminal:

from base import *
waterfowl = get_birds_by_family('anatidae')
image_quiz(waterfowl, figsize=(9,9))

If you are using an ipython terminal, then run base can be used in place of from base import *

To run an audio_quiz on the birds defined in the dataframe custom_list, and require that the answer refer to the order of the species, we can do the following

audio_quiz(custom_list, key='order')

Similarly, to run a video_quiz on the birds that we've seen and test on the family of the bird we can call

video_quiz(class_birds, key='family')

To exit a quiz, simply type "q" and press return. The audio can be repeated by entering "r" and pressing return; the same works with the video quiz.

If wanting to go the Cornell website for a particular bird, simply pass the name of the bird as a string into the function open_browser. If there is an apostrophe in the name, precede with a backspace.

open_brower('bald eagle')
open_browser('ross\'s goose')

Library Dependencies

Some python library dependencies:

    BeautifulSoup
    skimage
    pandas
    vimeo_dl
    vlc                  [also need VLC media player]
    webbrowser

Downloading

If git is installed, you can download the content into a directory using

    git clone https://github.com/bbergerud/merlin.git

If any changes are made to the content on github, you can update your files by running

    git pull

in the terminal. Otherwise, click the "Clone or download" button at the top.