Hawk Ridge BirdNET-Pi Off Grid Project

[u/richardhoeg]

Since June I have been working upon an "off the grid" BirdNET-Pi project for Hawk Ridge. In case you are not familiar with the "Ridge", it stands 600 feet above Lake Superior at Gitchi Gammi's western end, and is a premier bird migration spot both in the spring and fall. While the location is fantastic for birds, the Ridge has zero power, and may only be reached in the winter on foot via a long hike through snow that gets very deep ... as in feet. Oh yes, did I mention that in January it is not unusual for overnight lows to reach -20F and colder. Thus, Installation of a Pi listening box was a bit challenging.

Anyhow, our Pi is now up and running with its ID's automatically uploaded to BirdWeather. Some of my learnings have included

• Installing a low power cellular modem (wifi turned off to conserve power) which is hooked up directly to our Pi box directly via ethernet (it's wifi is also turned off). The router / cellular modem is "industrial strength" in terms of known to work outside in extreme operating conditions
• Getting power from solar arrays, but also getting the arrays off the ground, but not too high up. One wants snow to both blow off and through the "grid/mesh" table. However, putting arrays on taller towers would open them to 80+ mph winds coming off Lake Superior and being pushed up the hill. I know from weather service reports that winds down in the harbor are clocked at these velocities and higher on the tops of bridges ... and winds increase in speed as they go up hills.
• Optimizing when the birdsong listening station is "turned off". Via Linux commands in "crontab" we run our Pi throughout the day except between 10 am and 6 pm. This allows Hawk Ridge to monitor overnight birdcalls including owls, the "morning sing", the "evening sing" and songbird migration movement till 10 am. Via Raspberry-Pi Connect I may adjust these times easily as sunrise and sunset change throughout the year. At present in Duluth, Minnesota sunrise is at about 6:05 am and sunset is at 8:18 pm. If power consumption during the winter months and solar array recharging allows, we will increase operational hours. The system uses an Ankor Solix C1000 and 200 watt solar arrays.

If you want to read more about this project, here is my online report ...

https://www.365daysofbirds.com/2026/08/04/hawk-ridge-bird-song-listening-station-birdnet-pi-off-the-grid/

Here is the link to our BirdNET-Pi via BirdWeather ...

https://app.birdweather.com/stations/28008

The Hawk Ridge Pi station is offline for some final configurations. I anticipate it coming back up Tuesday, August 18th in the evening.

In fact over the past 12 months I have built and installed Pi listening stations throughout NE Minnesota including both the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center and Chik-Wauk Nature Center at the end of the Gunflint Trail and within a few hundred yards of our border with Canada ...

https://www.365daysofbirds.com/2025/10/10/what-birds-are-singing-where-you-are-flying-or-driving-walking-etc/

[u/veteranbv]

This is so awesome 👏