| # Field Validation |
|
|
| InsectNet field validation results from Pine Hollow, Tennessee (35.8565, -83.3744). |
| All detections are human-confirmed unless marked as playback. |
|
|
| ## Confirmed Natural Detections |
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|
| | Date | Class | Conf. | Species | Method | |
| |------|-------|-------|---------|--------| |
| | May 30 | cicada_drone | 83% | Neotibicen/Megatibicen | User confirmed by ear | |
| | May 30 | frog | 51% | Cope's Gray Treefrog | User heard outside + WAV confirmed | |
| | May 30 | frog | 80-99.97% | Cope's Gray Treefrog + Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toad | User confirmed chorus, two species | |
| | May 31 | cricket_katydid | 99% | Field cricket | User confirmed by ear | |
|
|
| ## Confirmed Playback Detections |
|
|
| | Date | Class | Conf. | Species | Notes | |
| |------|-------|-------|---------|-------| |
| | May 29 | cicada_drone | 100% | Neotibicen lyricen | Phone playback at mic | |
| | May 29 | frog | 64.5% | American Toad | Phone playback, BirdNET cross-validated | |
| | May 29 | frog | 99.2% | Gray Treefrog (Dryophytes spp.) | Phone playback | |
| | May 29 | cricket_katydid | 100% | Gryllus campestris | Phone playback; BirdNET misidentified as G. fultoni | |
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|
| ## Known False Positives |
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|
| | Source | Class Triggered | Confidence | Notes | |
| |--------|----------------|------------|-------| |
| | AC window unit | cicada_drone | Up to 92.3% | Background <2% — very confident wrong answer | |
| | Weed whacker | bee | 98.1% | User confirmed | |
| | Night ambient noise | bee | 50-70% | Temporal filter needed — bees don't fly at night | |
| |
| ## Key Validations |
| |
| ### Frog Chorus (May 30) |
| |
| The first sustained natural capture event. ~440 frog detections over 2.5 hours |
| (21:00-23:30). Two clear phases: |
| |
| 1. **Early evening (17:25-18:35):** Individual frogs at 55-65% confidence, |
| RMS 0.003-0.008 |
| 2. **Chorus peak (21:00-23:00):** Sustained 80-99.97% confidence, |
| RMS 0.01-0.08 |
| |
| Time-resolved BirdNET logit analysis identified two species calling |
| simultaneously: Cope's Gray Treefrog (dominant, throughout) and Eastern |
| Narrow-mouthed Toad (secondary, second half). |
| |
| ### First Natural Cicada (May 30, 06:59) |
| |
| After ~14 hours running unattended through overnight rain, the sidecar |
| captured a cicada at 83% confidence (RMS 0.009). The user confirmed it |
| sounded like a genuine cicada. Cosine similarity against training centroids |
| matched Neotibicen/Megatibicen (0.986). |
| |
| ### First Low-Confidence Frog (May 30, 20:08) |
| |
| A frog detected at only 51% confidence (RMS 0.004) was confirmed real — |
| the user heard the frog near the mic and confirmed the WAV. This invalidated |
| the hypothesis that real detections always clear 80% and established |
| class-dependent thresholds. |
| |
| ## Validation vs Testing |
| |
| - **Testing** confirms the pipeline works: inotify fires, WAVs get processed, |
| files end up in the right places. Confidence scores are not evidence. |
| - **Validation** requires human listening and explicit species identification. |
| Only validated captures qualify as training data. |
| |
| All detections listed above are validated. |
| |
