2025 Davidson Fellow Finnegan McGill from Tucson, Arizona, is making waves in the tech world with his A-BiRD project—an autonomous bird recognition device powered by a Raspberry Pi and Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s BirdNET Analyzer.
The innovative tool not only identifies bird species by their songs but also pinpoints call directions using Finnegan’s custom algorithms for precise migration tracking.
Deployed at a key migration hotspot, A-BiRD captured over 21,000 birdsong events across 98 species in a single season, providing valuable data amid global bird population declines.
His achievement earned a feature in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine—read the full story. Learn more about Finnegan on his Fellows profile.