BirdVox-25SD: a dataset of flight calls with species annotations

BirdVox 25 Species Dataset (BirdVox-25SD)
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Version 1.0, Jan 2021.

Created By
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Andrew Farnsworth (1), Benjamin Mark Van Doren (1), Steve Kelling (1), Vincent Lostanlen (2), Justin Salamon (3), Aurora Cramer (4), Juan Pablo Bello (4)

(1): Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO)
(2): Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes (LS2N), CNRS
(3): Adobe Research
(4): New York University

https://wp.nyu.edu/birdvox


Description
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The BirdVox 25 Species Dataset (BirdVox-25SD) contains 26,124 audio clips of avian flight calls, each ranging from about 150 ms to 500 ms in duration. The clips are extracted from the BirdVox-296h dataset using the corresponding annotations. The recordings come from ROBIN autonomous recording units, placed near Ithaca, NY, USA during the 2015 migration season (August - November).

The dataset can be used, among other things, for the research,
development and testing of bioacoustic classification models.

For details on the hardware of ROBIN recording units, we refer the reader to [1].

[1] J. Salamon, J. P. Bello, A. Farnsworth, M. Robbins, S. Keen, H. Klinck, and S. Kelling. Towards the Automatic Classification of Avian Flight Calls for Bioacoustic Monitoring. PLoS One, 2016.


Changes from BirdVox 14-SD
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This dataset builds upon the BirdVox 14 Species Dataset (BirdVox-14SD), adding ~12,000 audio clips and annotations. The annotation taxonomy has been expanded to add a new order, a new family, and 11 new species. Additionally, the audio clips are more accurately aligned to the annotation times.

For backwards compatibility with the BirdVox-14SD taxonomy, we include the file `birdvox25sd-to-birdvox14sd-taxonomy-code-map.csv` which maps BirdVox-25SD taxonomy codes to BirdVox-14SD taxonomy codes.


Taxonomic Annotations
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Classification annotations for each flight call are given at three taxonomic levels: order, family, and species. These annotations are condensed into a three-number-code which largely follow "..". The specific numeric codes are:

* Order
    * 1.\*.\* - Passeriformes
    * 2.\*.\* - Pelecaniformes
* Family
    * 1.1.\* - American Sparrow
    * 1.2.\* - Cardinals
    * 1.3.\* - Thrushes
    * 1.4.\* - New World warblers
    * 2.1.\* - Herons
* Species
    * 1.1.1  - American tree sparrow (ATSP)
    * 1.1.2  - Chipping sparrow (CHSP)
    * 1.1.3  - Savannah sparrow (SAVS)
    * 1.1.4  - White-throated sparrow (WTSP)
    * 1.1.5  - Song sparrow (SOSP)
    * 1.2.1  - Rose-breasted grosbeak (RBGR)
    * 1.3.1  - Gray-cheeked thrush (GCTH)
    * 1.3.2  - Swainson's thrush (SWTH)
    * 1.3.3 -  Hermit thrush (HETH)
    * 1.3.4 -  Veery (VEER)
    * 1.3.5 -  Wood thrush (WOTH)
    * 1.4.1  - American redstart (AMRE)
    * 1.4.2  - Bay-breasted warbler (BBWA)
    * 1.4.3  - Black-throated blue warbler (BTBW)
    * 1.4.4  - Canada warbler (CAWA)
    * 1.4.5  - Common yellowthroat (COYE)
    * 1.4.6  - Mourning warbler (MOWA)
    * 1.4.7  - Ovenbird (OVEN)
    * 1.4.8  - Black-and-white warbler (BAWW)
    * 1.4.9  - Cape May warbler (CMWA)
    * 1.4.10 - Chestnut-sided warbler (CSWA)
    * 1.4.11 - Northern Parula (NOPA)
    * 1.4.12 - Wilson's warbler (WIWA)
    * 1.4.13 - Yellow-rumped warbler (YRWA)
    * 2.1.1  - Green heron (GRHE)

Additionally, at any level of the taxonomy, the numeric code "0" is reserved for "other" and the code "X" refers to unknown. For example, 1.1.0 corresponds to an American Sparrow with a species outside of our scope of interest, and 1.1.X corresponds to an American Sparrow of unknown species. At the top level (family), the "other" codes (0.\*.\*) deviate from the family-order-species in order to capture a variety of other out-of-scope sounds, including anthropophony, non-avian biophony, and biophony of avians outside of the scope of interest. Please refer to `BirdVox-296h_taxonomy.yaml` in BirdVox-296h for the details of this taxonomy structure.


Data Files
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BirdVox-25SD contains the recordings as HDF5 files, sampled at 22,050 Hz, with a single channel (mono). Each HDF5 file contains flight call vocalizations of a particular species. The name of each HDF5 file follows the format: `BirdVox-25SD-v1pt0_{taxonomy_code}_original.h5`. The name of the HDF5 dataset in each file is "waveforms", with the corresponding key for each audio recording following the format: `unit-{unit_num}`.


Conditions of Use
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Dataset created by Andrew Farnsworth, Steve Kelling, Vincent Lostanlen, Justin Salamon, Aurora Cramer, and Juan Pablo Bello.

The BirdVox-25SD dataset is offered free of charge under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The dataset and its contents are made available on an "as is" basis and without  warranties of any kind, including without limitation satisfactory quality and  conformity, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy or  completeness, or absence of errors. Subject to any liability that may not be excluded or limited by law, CLO is not liable for, and expressly excludes all liability for, loss or damage however and whenever caused to anyone by any use of the BirdVox-25SD dataset or any part of it.


Feedback
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Please help us improve BirdVox-25SD by sending your feedback to:
vincent.lostanlen@gmail.com and auroracramer@nyu.edu

In case of a problem, please include as many details as possible.


Acknowledgements
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Jessie Barry, Ian Davies, Tom Fredericks, Jeff Gerbracht, Sara Keen, Holger Klinck, Anne Klingensmith, Ray Mack, Peter Marchetto, Ed Moore, Matt Robbins, Ken Rosenberg, and Chris Tessaglia-Hymes.

We acknowledge that the land on which the data was collected is the unceded territory of the Cayuga nation, which is part of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) confederacy.

The creation of this dataset was supported by NSF grants 1633259 (BIRDVOX).