An Automated Pipeline for Few-Shot Bird Call Classification: A Case Study with the Tooth-Billed Pigeon

Abstract

This paper presents a largely automated one-shot bird call classification pipeline, incorporating targeted manual quality control steps, designed for rare species absent from large publicly available classifiers like BirdNET and Perch. While these models excel at detecting common birds with abundant training data, they lack options for species with only 1-3 known recordings, a critical limitation for conservationists monitoring the last remaining individuals of endangered birds. To address this, we leverage the embedding space of large bird classification networks and develop a classifier using cosine similarity, combined with filtering and denoising preprocessing techniques, to optimize detection with minimal training data. We evaluate various embedding spaces using clustering metrics and validate our approach in both a simulated scenario with Xeno-Canto recordings and a real-world test on the critically endangered tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), which has no existing classifiers and only three confirmed recordings. The final model achieved 1.0 recall and 0.95 accuracy in detecting tooth-billed pigeon calls, making it practical for use in the field. This open-source system provides a practical tool for conservationists seeking to detect and monitor rare species on the brink of extinction.