DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14039936
title: NBM: an Open Dataset for the Acoustic Monitoring of Nocturnal Migratory Birds in Europe

description: This is the dataset presented in the paper "NBM: an Open Dataset for the Acoustic Monitoring of Nocturnal Migratory Birds in Europe", which can be found here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.03633.

 

Update 2025, November 7th & 10th

- A Data_statistics csv splitting bird species by total annotation and recording numbers has been added to the repository, for a quick look at the bird species distribution in the dataset.

- Fixing of annotation irregularities (mainly blank annotations with a missing label).

Update 2025, June 13th

- A metadata file can now be found alongside the dataset ("metadata.csv"): it contains the recording date for original NBM files whenever available, and date and location for all but two of the files originating from Xeno-Canto. All audio samples in the train_nbm_orig folder were recorded in France, but no precise location is available for this collection.

- Irregularities due to unconstrained text input in several annotation files have been fixed; in particular all annotated parasitic and background noise are now gathered in two classes: 0: Background and 0: Other biophonia. Unidentified bird vocalizations fall under the Other category.

 

File description

Files come in three directories: train_nbm_orig, train_nbm_xc and test.

Each is composed of a list of .wav files with its .txt annotations file. All bird vocalizations are linked to a species and are annotated both in time and frequency.

The train dataset is composed of a total of  2,077 audio files and 13,359 annotations, for a total of ~38 hours of recording. Among these, 883 files were downloaded from Xeno-canto and finely hand-annotated.

 

Citation (Bibtex)

@article{airale2024nbm,
  title={NBM: an Open Dataset for the Acoustic Monitoring of Nocturnal Migratory Birds in Europe},
  author={Airale, Louis and Pajot, Adrien and Linossier, Juliette},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.03633},
  year={2024}
}

License

Data samples are distributed under various licenses depending on their origin: all samples from the original NBM database (source 'src' marked as 'NBM-Orig.' in the metadata file) are provided under CC BY 4.0. Files originating from xeno-canto (having 'XC' in the 'src' field of the metadata file) retain their original license (see the 'lic' column of the metadata).

 

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to all contributors to the initial NBM database: Adrien Pajot, Aymeric Mousseau, Christophe Mercier, Frédéric Cazaban, Gaëtan Mineau, Ghislain Riou, Guillaume Bigayon, Hervé Renaudineau, Kévin Leveque, Lionel Manceau, Mathurin Aubry, Maxence Pajot, Nidal Issa, Willy Raitière, and equal thanks to all anonymous further contributors.

Acknowledgments also go to all contributors of the Xeno-Canto database whose recordings where used to build this dataset:

Joost van Bruggen, Ricardo Hevia, Paul Kelly, Franck Hollander, Frédéric Cazaban, Ireneusz Oleksik, Irish Wildlife Sounds, Stanislas Wroza, Cedric Mroczko, Will Scott, Sergi, Chris Batty, Martin Billard, Juha Saari, Julien Bottinelli, Mark Pearson, Uku Paal, Christophe Mercier, Thierry THOMAS, Samuel Levy, Paul Coiffard, Lluís Brotons, Jorge Leitão, Alan Dalton, David Tattersley, Xavier Riera, Lars Mogensen, Feliu López i Gelats, José Manuel Reyes Páez, Jon Sparshott, Sergi Carreras, Marta Celej, julien Rochefort, Chèvremont Fabian, MILLON Xavier, Ed Stubbs, Niels Van Doninck, Jarek Matusiak, Anthony ROUX, Dan Lombard, C PAL, Ray Tsu 诸仁, Martijn Verdoes, Pierrick Devoucoux, Manceau Lionel, Lionel Manceau, Vandousselaere Patrick, Volker Arnold, Lars Edenius, Krzysztof Deoniziak, Albert Noorlander, Robert Ekman, Oriol Baena, Mr Mark Shorten, Beatrix Saadi-Varchmin, Simon Kiesé, Robert Manzano, Martin Fousert, Simon Gillings, Lisette, Marco Dragonetti, Cédric PEIGNOT, Adrien CHARBONNEAU, Gosse Hoekstra, Christian Kerihuel, Koen Lepla, Daniele Baroni, Peter van Vlaardingen, Albert Subirà, Alain Malengreau, Julien Piette, Calum Mckellar, Mikael Litsgård, Martin Grienenberger, Sven Kransel, Oliwier Myka, Susanne Kuijpers, Pierre Foulquier, Paolo Zucca, Maties, Geoffrey Monchaux, Jean COURTIN, Pere Josa, Stein Ø. Nilsen, florent yvert, John Sirrett, Toby Carter, Grzegorz Lorek, Tom Jordan, Miguel Tirado, Helder Cardoso, Ignaas Robbe, James P, Corentin Rivière, Romuald Mikusek, David Santamaría Urbano, Diego Fernandez Martinez, Tanguy Loïs, Camille Vacher, Frank Pierik, Testaert Dominique, Piotr Szczypinski, Rafael Costas, Patrick Franke, Ad Hilders, J. Veeken, Thijs Calu, David Pennington, Nic Hallam, Albert Lastukhin, Dominique Guillerme, W. Agster, Nittert van de Water, Marcos Prada Arias, Francesco Barberini, Enrico Hübner, Luca Forneris, Graham Clarke, Mike Douglas, Johan Willner, Sébastien Arriubergé, Rafał Szczerbik, Alessandro Pavesi, Jarred Johnson, Tomasz Wałachowski, Cédric JOUVE, Tom Gheskiere, jesus carrion, David Darrell-Lambert, Graham Sparshott, Théo Hervé, Martin Sutherland, Quentin Giraud, Kévin Giraudin, LE ROY Renaud, August Thomasson, Marcin Sołowiej, Filippo Ceccolini, BirdingAlbufera, Armin Kreusel, Robert Thorpe, Sannier, Oscar Vilches, Paweł Szymański, Jerome Fischer, Matt Slaymaker, Gil Lissens, Sidney M, Matthias Feuersenger, JC Paniagua, Anita Rakitić, david m, Maxime Pirio, brickegickel, Mark Newsome, Sophie REVERDIAU, Oriol, Michaël Bridoux, Sonothèque ADVL, Kieran Nixon, Jochem verweij, Sjouke Scholten, Michael Brunhøj Hansen, Peter Stronach, Pere Josa Anguera, Esperanza Poveda, Johannes Dag Mayer, Pablo Valverde, Friedemann Arndt, Tristan Guillebot de Nerville, Adam Cross, Richard Drew, Cindie Arlaud, Petr Večeřa, Domagoj Tomičić, Guillaume Petitjean, riou, Peter Mattsson, Michał Jezierski, SCECB NATURA-Z, Karol Łanocha, Twan Mols, Klaus Fink, Dawid Jablonski, Arnold Meijer, Paul Ehlers, José Carlos Sires, manuel Grosselet, Birding The Strait, Charlie Bodin, Juan Carlos Paniagua, Nabholz Benoit, Fergus Crystal, Agris Celmins, Albert Cama, Iván Vega, John Muddeman, Adrien Mauss, Gerard Troost, Serge Hoste, Stefano Miceli, Joan Balfagon, Ace, Frank A. Roos, Tom Wulf, Vincent Palomares, Marcel Tenhaeff, Gabriel Hasan, James Lidster, Frank van de Weijer, Herman van Oosten, Alain Verneau, Herman van der Meer, Romain SPELLER, Johan Lorentzon, Thomas ARMAND, Chris Beach, Jacob Spinks, András Schmidt, Jonathan van Erkel, James Spencer, Rowan Wakefield, LEPAGE Frédéric, Itziar Gutiérrez, Severin Racky, NEVILLE MADON, B Whyte, Bodhuin Maxime, Benoit Paepegaey, Ruysschaert, Soulier Pierrick, Frederik Fluyt, Thomas Roux, Eduardo Realinho, Simon Elliott, Oscar Vilches Mendoza, Juan Pita-Romero Caamaño, Gary Elton, Marc Hughes, Raul Pascual, Nicolas Selosse, Arnaud Hedel, Gaëtan Mineau, Peter Boesman, Steve Flynn, Gerry p oneill, Andy Hultberg, Helmut Schaffer, Luca Giussani, edouard dansette, Gavia Stellata, Robert Schouw, Sławomir Karpicki-Ignatowski, mvallespirc, Mark Plummer, Chacron, Seynaeve Adriaan, Kristian Whittaker, Andreas Pettersson, Rafał Kurowski, Delpit, Anja van Halbeek, Lars Burnus, Benjamin Schedl, Sreekumar Chirukandoth, Mathias Götz, Mikhail Velikanov, Paul Bourdin, Török Tamás, Mehmet Ali Demiral, Manuel Grosselet, Olivier Swift, Yoann Blanchon, Jacob Bosma, Alexis Bukowski, Götz Ellwanger, Guillaume Bigayon, Charlie BODIN, Olivier SWIFT, Manuel Grosselet, Tero Linjama, Ad Postma, Eetu Paljakka, Jan Hein van Steenis, Alwin van Lubeck, Jacobo Ramil MIllarengo, Andrew Cobley, guus van duin, Meinolf Ottensmann, Steve Thorpe, Antoine Salmon, Alain Beuget, Simon Busuttil, Bertrand Dallet, Bill Haines, Robbin van Dijk, Jacopo Barchiesi, Johan Jordaans, Simon BAUDOUIN, Nelson Conceição, Teet Sirotkin, Dean McDonnell, Jocce Ekstrom, Michael John O Mahony, Fred Prak, Joachim Pintens, Christophe Legrand, Daniel Beuker, G Berger, Steve Blain, Boris Delahaie, Will Langdon, David Melichar, Emmanuel Roy, Jonas Brüggeshemke, YvesDS, FRIEDRICH Richard