Innovative Birdsong Project Unlocks Secret to Managing Biodiversity

An innovative project that uses birdsong as a key to unlocking the secrets of wildlife has been launched in a collaboration between the UK Agri-Tech Centre and Chirrup.ai.

Chirrup.ai launched the groundbreaking technology to make nature monitoring simpler and cheaper, making it an affordable solution for measuring and managing biodiversity.

The project, ‘ChirrupNano’, with funding from Innovate UK, uses birdsong to monitor wildlife previously unseen in nature reserves and back garden bird counts.

The next-generation bio-recorder is slimline, self-locating, remotely deployed, and designed and built right here in the UK.

It’s delivered straight to the farm and can be deployed in sun and shade, in remote fields, and woodland – wherever it’s needed.

Chirrup’s AI already recognises over 100 species from Great Britain and Ireland.

It is already getting major retraining to recognise all the important species that the UK’s pioneering non-governmental organisations have drawn to our attention, thanks to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), The Wildlife Trusts and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT).

The redesigned website app lets farms compare their species lists to others, to standard benchmarks, and even their past performance.

This empowers them to make more informed decisions about sustainable practices, leading to a richer, healthier ecosystem – such as increased plant diversity, better soil, and fewer pests.

Birds are ecological barometers; they’re everywhere, super responsive to change and their presence tells a story about the thriving life in the places they occupy – from insects and plants to clean water and the general quality of the ecosystem.

With farmland covering a huge 71% of the UK, it is the ideal testing ground for the next-generation Chirrup.ai and farmers are being asked to respond to changing government and food company policies on pro-wildlife production.

The ChirrupNano project is about making it easy, fast, and affordable. One hundred farmers were invited to a farmland trial to help refine the next-generation Chirrup.ai, and will also contribute to the future of environmental monitoring in the UK.

Hayley Gerry, Project Manager at the UK Agri-Tech Centre, said, “The expanse of knowledge we can gain about biodiversity in an area using the bioacoustics of bird song is extremely impressive.

“To enable sustainable farming, we need to encourage multi-species habitats to enrich the areas, which in turn makes the farming of livestock and arable products sustainable,” continued Gerry.

“In order to do this we need to be able to measure the baseline of the current situation, and that is where this project comes in.”

Dr Stella Peace, Executive Director for Healthy Living and Agriculture at Innovate UK, said, “These innovations are crucial for safeguarding our natural environment.

“By investing in these pioneering projects, we’re helping businesses unlock innovations that make life better, ensuring that the UK leads the way in developing sustainable solutions that benefit both our economy and our communities,” said Peace.

Next steps

The project will be put to the test in the spring of 2025 across the UK.

An expert ornithologist and ecologists will analyse and validate the results whilst the UK Agri-Tech Centre will help us to link outcomes to agricultural practices.

To share the findings. Chirrup.ai will host two exciting events at the end of the project.

Chirrup.ai helps farmers and land managers understand their land better. By listening to birds and using smart AI technology, they create tools that track biodiversity, help farms meet environmental goals, and support sustainable agriculture. Their mission is to make it easier for farmers, land managers, food intermediaries, brand companies and retailers to measure, protect, and improve local ecosystems.