Differentiating between individuals of a same species is essential in the study of wild animals, their processes of adaptation and behaviour. Scientists from the CEFE research centre in Ecology and Evolutionary Ecology (CNRS/ Université de Montpellier/ Université Paul-Valéry-Montpellier/ IRD/ EPHE) and the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO) at Porto University have for the very first time identified individual birds with the help of artificial intelligence technology. They have developed a technique that enables them to gather a large number of photographs, taken from various angles, of individual birds wearing electronic tags. These images were fed into computers which used deep learning technology to recognise the birds by analysing the photographs. The computers were able to distinguish individual birds according to the patterns on their plumage, something humans can't do.

For even the most sharp-eyed of ornithologists, one great tit can look much like another. But now researchers have built the first artificial intelligence tool capable of identifying individual small birds. Computers have been trained to learn to recognise dozens of individual birds – which could potentially save scientists arduous hours in the field with binoculars, as well as the catching of birds to fit coloured rings to their legs. "We show that computers can consistently recognise dozens of individual birds, even though we cannot ourselves tell these individuals apart," said André Ferreira, a PhD student at the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE-CNRS), in France. "In doing so, our study provides the means of overcoming one of the greatest limitations in the study of wild birds – reliably recognising individuals."