Updating V2.4 database species names to align with eBird Taxonomy 2025 list

[msanders59]

Hi,

I notice that the species names in the BirdNet v2.4 database seem to be most closely aligned to the eBird 2021 taxonomy list. So there's a bunch of obsolete species names in the v2.4 databse.

One that crops up all the time where I live is the Olived-backed Sunbird, which got renamed to Ornate Sunbird quite a few years ago.

Are there any plans to update to the current species names. I actually had to write a post-processor to re-map the obsolete names to the current names, which found 234 obsolete names in the v2.4 database (but there are problably some more that I missed). thanks

[anntnzrb]

Manual Update Process:

1. Download 2025 eBird Taxonomy:

curl -L "https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/eBird_taxonomy_v2025.csv" \
  -o eBird_taxonomy_v2025.csv

2. Convert to BirdNET JSON Format:

import csv, json

taxonomy = {}
with open("eBird_taxonomy_v2025.csv", "r") as f:
    reader = csv.DictReader(f)
    for row in reader:
        if row["CATEGORY"] == "species":
            sci_name = row["SCI_NAME"]
            com_name = row["PRIMARY_COM_NAME"]
            code = row["SPECIES_CODE"]
            species_key = f"{sci_name}_{com_name}"
            taxonomy[species_key] = code
            taxonomy[code] = species_key

with open("eBird_taxonomy_codes_2025.json", "w") as f:
    json.dump(taxonomy, f, indent=2)

3. Update Config:
In birdnet_analyzer/config.py line 60, change:

CODES_FILE = os.path.join(SCRIPT_DIR, "eBird_taxonomy_codes_2025.json")

Files to update:

• birdnet_analyzer/eBird_taxonomy_codes_2024E.json → Replace with 2025
• birdnet_analyzer/config.py → Update CODES_FILE path

Reference: https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/