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Forbes
25-06-2025
- Forbes
AI Bird Feeders Are The Latest Tech Toy You Didn't Know You Needed
Bird Buddy, a smart camera bird feeder, uses an AI-powered camera feeder to detect when birds land, identifies the species, takes their photos and organizes them in a collection. (Photo by) Getty Images A funny thing happened on the way to mass bird extinction: Backyard bird feeders like, Bird Buddy and Birdfy, started booming. It makes sense if you pull out your binoculars. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, North America has lost nearly three billion birds since 1970. Yet during that same bleak period, birdwatching (especially the backyard variety) has become something of a national obsession. It likely started with pandemic cabin fever and a flock of TikTok naturalists but it's fledged into the rise of tech toys that put AI-assisted cameras and connected apps on bird feeders so you can watch your fluttery friends from anywhere. I spent way too much time recently live-streaming the Eagle Cam, which chronicles the exploits of two juvenile bald eagles, Gizmo and Sunny, from Big Bear, California. Now that they've left the nest, I thought I'd see what's available for home birders. Birdfy showcases their bird feeders with built-in cameras during 2025 CES Unveiled, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Jack Dempsey) Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved For sure it's a crowded market, with competitors like Bird Buddy, Birdfy, PerchMe, PeckPerk and Soliom offering camera-equipped feeders at various price points and with a stunning range of options. You've got solar roof panels that power the tech, squirrel-proof porches, built-in antennae for better wifi and AI recognition to identify whatever bird flies up to the perch. And while some birdhouses are cheaper and perhaps better at keeping squirrels away (and PerchMe has cool wings in its design), the clear favorite among reviewers and testers is Bird Buddy's Smart Bird Feeder Pro. It's got built-in AI software that identifies over 1,000 types of birds, has a large porch for birds to hang out on, and a high-res (5MP) camera and built-in mic that gives you some of the most vivid images you'll ever see of your own backyard. Right now you can find them for just under $200. An exhibitor holds up the Bird Buddy smart camera bird feeder during CES Unveiled before the start of the CES tech show, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, in Las Vegas. The AI-powered camera bird feeder notifies you when a bird is feeding, takes pictures and organizes the photos. (AP Photo/John Locher) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. My father-in-law and a few of my friends have Bird Buddies and I love that the unit sends 'postcards' to your phone whenever a bird lands on the roost. There's video, too, and you can even watch slow-mo replays of wrens and cardinals alighting on the feeder. What's also nice is that while most smart feeders require a paid plan to unlock full features (like video or photo archives), a business model that has irked more than a few buyers, Bird Buddy's Pro version is more transparent. While it does offer a subscription (for added storage and features), the free version still delivers plenty of functionality out of the box—something that can't be said for all competitors. Just be warned: Feeders like Bird Buddy quickly get addictive. You come home in the afternoon wondering whether that little yellow chickadee came back for some seeds. It's like your own backyard drama: Most American homes witness somewhere between 10 to 15 bird species flying around over the course of the year. For anyone curious about birds but not quite ready to memorize field guides, a smart feeder like Bird Buddy makes it easy to start paying attention and maybe even caring about these beautiful creatures. With the right setup, your backyard bird feeder little nature documentary, only you get to be the narrator. ALSO ON FORBES Forbes The Indoor Garden That's Foolproof, Gorgeous, And Actually Works By David Hochman Forbes 'Jaws' Turns 50: The Summer Blockbuster That Still Dominates Pop Culture By David Hochman Forbes How One Buzzy New Los Angeles Restaurant Solved The $25 Burger Problem By David Hochman
The Guardian
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
How to become a birder: 10 easy ways to start this life-changing hobby
I'm assured this is a big deal: on the far side of a field in Thetford, separated from me by a gate, there is a stone-curlew. Jon Carter, from the British Trust for Ornithology, patiently directs my binoculars up, down and past patches of grass until my gaze lands on an austere-looking, long-legged brown bird. 'Quite a rare bird,' Carter says, pleased. 'Very much a bird of the Breckland.' As a very beginner birder, I'll have to take his word for that. My interest was sparked early this summer when a friend introduced me to Merlin Bird ID. Developed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, the app records birdsong and uses artificial intelligence to identify particular species – like Shazam for birds. Merlin has added a new dimension to my walks, sharpening my awareness of wildlife I'd ordinarily have tuned out. I can now identify one bird by song alone (the chiffchaff – it helpfully says its name). Having surged through the pandemic, birding may be taking off once more. Merlin has recently been shouted out on the ultra-cool NTS radio station and on Instagram by Sarah Jessica Parker, while The Residence, the recent Netflix whodunnit from Shonda Rhimes' production company, features a birdwatching detective. Birding not only gets you outdoors and moving, but engages you in nature; both benefit mental and physical health. A 2022 study found that everyday encounters with birdlife were associated with lasting improvements in mental wellbeing. Even simply hearing birdsong can be restorative. But how do you go from noticing birds to becoming a full-blown birder? Carter and other experts took me under their wings. Carter is leading me through the BTO's Nunnery Lakes reserve, just south of Thetford in Norfolk. Sixty species of birds breed here between March and August, and more stop over. In just 20 minutes, we spot a dozen or so, including a charming family of great crested grebes. Many birders practise 'patch birding', focusing their entire practice on just the one area, Carter tells me: 'It's quite addictive.' He discovered birding aged 11, when his family moved close to the RSPB's Leighton Moss nature reserve in coastal Lancashire. 'Suddenly, birds became the absolute focus.' But even urban areas teem with birdlife. Nadeem Perera, an RSPB ambassador and co-founder of the birding community Flock Together, got hooked after spotting a green woodpecker in a suburban London cemetery. 'I couldn't get over how strikingly beautiful this bird was, and moreover, that it was on my doorstep,' he says. At the time, Perera was 15 and had just dropped out of school. He was feeling hopeless and disengaged. The woodpecker represented hope and possibility. 'All I knew was that being exposed to birds in their natural environments made me feel good – so I kept on going.' Fifteen years later, Perera can confidently identify most birdsong in London. With more than 600 bird species recorded in the UK, Carter suggests starting with those you're most likely to encounter locally. A field guide such as Collins Bird Guide is the best way to familiarise yourself with different types of birds and helpful vocabulary. By learning a little about the taxonomies – and what distinguishes, say, a passerine (perching bird) from a petrel (seabird) – 'you very quickly learn how to describe the birds you see,' Carter says. But don't feel pressure to become an expert, he adds. 'People can just enjoy being in nature because it's valid and valuable.' Amy Tan, the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club, became a 'back yard birder' in 2016, following Donald Trump's election. 'It was so depressing – I needed to find beauty again in the world,' she says. At the time, Tan was 64. Birding brought her calm and a refreshed perspective, 'getting distracting and distressing elements out of my head so I could continue with my day'. Soon she became 'obsessed' with birds; at one point, she even stored live mealworms in her fridge. In her book The Backyard Bird Chronicles (a US bestseller, to be published in the UK in August), Tan captures her visitors with whimsical descriptions and drawings. She can now identify more than 70 species – but that knowledge came gradually, she says. 'If you take on too much at once, it's overwhelming, and then you just don't want to do it any more.' Naming birds 'does not have to be a criteria' to enjoy them, she adds. 'It's a very democratic hobby, or passion – or obsession.' Technology can be a gateway to green spaces, as demonstrated by my experience with Merlin Bird ID. It's useful for engaging young people in particular in the natural world, Carter agrees – and perhaps more realistic than urging them to leave their phones at home. The Collins Bird Guide is also available as an app for on-the-go referral (though most birders seem to use the app alongside the hard copy, since the book is easier to browse). Carter also recommends the BTO's free app BirdTrack, which allows users to record their sightings, review those of others, and contribute to research. Some people prefer eBird, which, like Merlin, comes from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Though apps can augment birders' experience in the field, they can also distract from it. Carter says Merlin is best used in addition to your own instincts and identifications, rather than as a replacement – not least because 'it's not 100% accurate'. And by immediately reaching for the app to ID a bird sighting or song, you also risk skipping over steps that would make that knowledge stick or feel earned. I have now started using Merlin only after making my best guess as to what species I'm hearing. I am usually wrong (unless it's a chiffchaff) – but I feel as if I'm training my ear. Birding requires patience, which is at odds with our on-demand culture, Perera points out. That's 'one of the great things' about it – but it can be a tough adjustment. 'This isn't Netflix. There's every chance that you will see nothing. Then you realise: 'Oh, wow, the world actually doesn't happen on my terms,'' he says. 'It humbles your ego a little bit. But it makes you very appreciative of those magical moments when you do see the bird that you're after.' Birding is a widely accessible, even generally free pastime – 'but if you want to do it to a certain standard, you need to buy a pair of binoculars,' Carter says. As a one-off expense, it's worth putting in the time to find a pair that suits your purposes (and ideally try before you buy). Magnification is not the only consideration, Carter says; some have a brighter picture, but might be less sharp. Weight and size are also important. 'It's about finding ones that feel right in your hand.' Premium-brand 'bins', such as Leica and Zeiss, go for more than £1,000. (An AI-assisted pair made by Swarovski – yes, like the crystal – will set you back £3,695.) Budget models have come a long way, but Carter warns against scrimping: 'You're not going to get anything under £150 or £200 that's even really useful. But once you've got it, you're done.' Think of it as an investment, echoes Sam Walker of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) charity. 'You don't have to spend thousands, but it's really key. Even if it's just a small pair of field binoculars, they're going to set you up for decades into the future.' He suggests buying top brands secondhand, available at a fifth or even a tenth of the price of new. Walker's own binoculars and telescope are probably more than 10 years old, 'but it's still great-quality glass'. Birding is often a solitary pursuit, but it doesn't have to be. 'It's a more social hobby than you'd think,' says Walker. He got into birding six years ago when he started working at the WWT, and says the best way to learn is by going out with people with more experience. 'It's much easier to identify birds and retain information, because you've got others there to bounce ideas off. I'm always really keen to not be sat in a bird hide, on my own, in the dark.' Nature reserves and organisations such as the BTO and the RSPB put on birding walks, talks, training courses and events. Joining a local bird club is also a great way to meet like-minded people. Birding may still be dominated by older, white men – but that is changing. The BTO and RSPB both have youth wings, while groups such as Birds & the Belles and Birding for All are working to make the pastime more inclusive. Perera and Ollie Olanipekun co-founded Flock Together in 2020, as a 'birdwatching club for Black and brown people'. Five years on, it holds monthly birdwatching walks and has chapters in Tokyo, Toronto and New York. 'Don't let anybody intimidate you, or make you feel as though you don't belong,' says Perera, who is of Sri Lankan and Jamaican heritage. 'They're just scared that you're going to be better at it than them.' Birders love to log their sightings: the most common records are 'year lists', covering the calendar year, and 'life lists' that include everything. Walker's 2025 list is currently at 130 species, sighted around his Gloucestershire home – but he knows birders with life lists tallying 600-plus. 'You can imagine the amount of time and money that they've spent travelling around.' Many birdwatchers will go to great lengths to secure rare spots. 'It just adds a little bit of magic sparkle to your birding year, and builds up that life list as well.' But even patch-birders, focused on their local area, can get a bit obsessive about trying to catch 'em all, Walker admits. 'People get worried about going away on holiday.' While some structure or system can support your developing hobby, Carter discourages being too focused on outcomes. 'I've seen quite a few young people get into the rarity, list-building thing.' Earlier this month, a Pallas's reed bunting was spotted on Fair Isle in the Shetlands – only the fifth sighting recorded since 1976. Though the bird itself is small and unshowy, excitement levels were high: 'A mostly monochrome masterpiece, this was the stuff of birding legend,' wrote the Rare Bird Alert newsletter. Carter recalls: 'straight away, people were trying to figure out if they could get charter flights, whether there were any boats running …' He advises slowing down. 'Take your time; learn to really love birds.' Tan decries some birdwatchers' elitism, and dismissal of common species. 'They'll call a starling or sparrow a 'junk bird'; I think that's horrible.' She approaches birding as a practice of observation, and even mindfulness. 'You can start noticing what a bird is doing – these ordinary behaviours that we don't always pay attention to.' Tan also studies the pecking order playing out at her feeders. 'Trying to decipher the relationships – that's part of the fun,' she says. Drawing each bird pushes her to focus on easily missed details such as bill shape or foot colour, and 'the way that each individual bird is actually constructed'. Keeping a journal or a diary (as The Backyard Bird Chronicles began) helps 'anchor' her practice, Tan says. 'It's a good brain exercise, if you're a writer, but also just for remembering the things that made your life so meaningful and joyful.' Once you're familiar with your patch and its regulars, you can start attuning yourself to seasonal variations. Many migratory birds arrive in the UK during the spring, staying for the summer and leaving just as winter visitors are descending. The time of day and the weather affect sightings, too. Birdlife is typically most active at dawn and dusk. While rain can worsen visibility and make some species less active, it enlivens others and causes them to fly closer to the ground, making them easier to spot. Strong onshore winds can blow seabirds towards the coast from open water, and cause migratory species from North America, Europe or Asia to make a pit stop on British shores. Just a short drive or train ride can transport you to a different habitat hosting unfamiliar species, Walker says. 'Even in London, you can get out to heathland or down to the coast.' The eBird and BirdTrack apps, alerting on recent sightings and particular hotspots, can give you a sense of what to look for – but in general, Walker says, 'being out and always birding is the best place to be'. As well as offering an escape from screens, work and day-to-day stresses, birding can deepen your investment in nature. You might notice the changing climate in your area, or get involved in local efforts to protect green spaces. 'It connects you to it, so you care about it, and you're concerned when someone wants to fill in your local pond or build a road through woodland,' says Carter. You can contribute to science and conservation efforts by logging sightings on BirdTrack, adding to a national database of 'what's where and when'. The BTO also conducts regular projects and surveys – of wetland birds, breeding birds or garden birds – involving thousands of volunteers each year. Even beginners can play a part, says Carter. 'Every record is of some value: if you identify only half the birds you saw, that half is still really useful. You don't have to be an expert in telling one weird wader apart from another weird wader – there are always people who are good at that.' The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan is published in the UK by Corsair (£20) on 7 August
CBS News
12-05-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Extremely rare piebald robin spotted in Pittsburgh park
A robin with an extremely rare condition that turns part of its body white has been spotted around a Pittsburgh park. Pittsburgh park rangers shared photos last week of a piebald robin that's all the talk around Riverview Park. The park rangers explained that the robin, which still has a red breast but has black and white speckled feathers, has a genetic condition called leucism, meaning some cells lack pigment and others don't. What is leucism? According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, full leucism happens when there's a reduction in all types of pigment, making an animal appear paler than normal. Partial leucism results in irregular patches of white, a pattern that is often called "pied" or "piebald." Leucism is different than albinism, which is a genetic mutation that interferes with the production of the pigment melanin. Pittsburgh park rangers say albino animals have red or pink eyes, while animals with leucism still have color in their eyes. "This does not hurt the bird, except that it doesn't blend in with its environment as easily as it would otherwise," Pittsburgh park rangers explained. How rare is leucism? The park rangers say only 1 in 30,000 birds have leucism, "so this splotchy robin is pretty rare and special!" It's not the first piebald animal to be spotted in the Pittsburgh area. Last fall, a wildlife camera in Western Pennsylvania captured video of a piebald deer, which was both brown and white. The Pennsylvania Game Commission said piebald deer are reported at rates well under 1% of the population.
Globe and Mail
10-05-2025
- Science
- Globe and Mail
What we lose when we let AI automate our connection to the non-human world
Marcel O'Gorman is a professor and the founding director of the Critical Media Lab at the University of Waterloo. As you read this, up to three billion birds are on a perilous journey to Canada. They will eschew the land of our southern neighbours, like many wary Canadians in these times, and build their own worlds here. During a time of escalating technopolitical power struggles on a global, these indefatigable cross-border travellers offer us many opportunities for reflection. Allow yourself the luxury of paying attention to them, especially as it happens to be World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD). On WMBD in May, 2024, I was awakened by a riotous cacophony raining down from the trees at Point Pelee National Park. Nestled under wool blankets in a cozy oTENTiK, I reached for my phone and launched the Merlin app. Merlin, an AI-powered wizard conjured by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, features a sound ID function that can identify more than 1300 species of birds. With my head resting comfortably on a pillow, I looked up at the screen and watched in awe as they manifested one by one: red-winged blackbird. Common yellowthroat. Yellow warbler. White-throated sparrow. Rose-breasted grosbeak. And so on. Without Merlin, I could probably only recognize two or three of the 20 or so birdsongs it had recognized. The app had turned me into a birding machine. My collaborator Jen Clary-Lemon, also birding in bed, fetched the checklist we were given at the visitor centre. As we eagerly ticked the boxes next to bird species, a dark mood crept into the oTENTik. After all, we were cheating. There is something unsettling about birdwatching on an iPhone while glamping. We decided that, instead of putting a check mark beside the birds we hadn't actually seen, we'd put an L for 'Listening.' This guilt-motivated gesture felt like a bad compromise, and we could sense the 'real' birdwatchers looking over our shoulders, tsk-tsking us from under their Tilley hats. In fact, we were not birdwatching at all. If anything, we were merely 'app watching.' In hindsight, all those L's are a trace of how it feels to be a Lazy birdwatcher, a birding Loser. But what exactly have we lost in the process? I can't help but relate this experience to a tired old yarn by Plato, often dragged out by curmudgeons who bemoan the rise of a new technology. As the story goes, the deity Theuth (a bird-headed deity, nonetheless) presents King Thamus with the gift of writing. But Thamus refuses the invention and tells Theuth: 'You offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with.' If Thamus refused the gift of writing because it externalizes memory, imagine what he would think of Merlin. Could it be that Merlin, to borrow a line from Nicholas Carr's bemoaning of Google, is 'making us stoopid'? I confess that I have dragged out this Platonic tale for my own writing students during discussions of ChatGPT. AI can strip the presence of a human intelligence from the act of writing. It robs the reader of an intimate connection with the world of another human being: the writer. The same diminishment of presence can happen with bird-identification apps if we let AI automate our connection to the non-human world. There are far worse techniques than AI to identify and count birds. In his short but smart book Bird, Erik Anderson paints an unassuming yet insidious picture of the amateur birder, 'a local gentleman, a true Victorian enthusiast, marching off through meadows, gun slung over his shoulder.' Indeed, collecting birds once meant quite literally killing them and preserving their skins for bragging rights, for financial gain, and only sometimes in the name of science. The history of bird counting is ultimately a history of bird killing. In Sparrow Envy, the naturalist J. Drew Lanham sets out to amend the 'past transgressions of long ago dead and rotted bird watchers.' He is referring primarily to wealthy Victorian collectors who had a 'self-serving penchant for naming things after themselves.' To right this wrong, Dr. Lanham's 'feel guide' to birds includes a ceremony of renaming. Bachman's warbler, an extinct species, is recast as 'swamp cane warbler.' LeConte's sparrow becomes 'orange-faced' sparrow, and so on. He even calls into question the morbid collective noun for crows. There's 'no cause,' he writes, 'to criminalize the corvid kind.' No caws indeed. On a recent visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, my collaborator and I were able to feel the history of bird collecting with all our senses, guided by the now-retired ornithologist and bird curator, Mark Peck. The basement of the ROM is home to more than 130,000 study skins of birds. The skins are stored in large wooden drawers that slide in and out of aging metal cabinets. This is a 'bird morgue,' my collaborator rightly affirmed. Most of these specimens, which consist of the skin and feathers of birds stuffed with cotton, come from private collections and date back to the early 1800s. Many of them were collected during the Annual Christmas Bird Count, an event that began as an opportunity to shoot as many birds as possible before sitting down to a dinner of roasted goose. As the aptly named Dr. Peck opened the first cabinet and slid out a wide, shallow drawer of Spruce Grouse, we were hit by a wave of scent more chemical than organic. It so happens that many of the older skins were preserved with arsenic soap, meaning the bird morgue could be fatal to birds and humans alike. This specific drawer contained about 20 grouse laying on their backs, exposing the striking white barring on their chests. Like many other birds in these cabinets, the grouse were collateral damage from a scientific study. As bird philosopher Vinciane Despret puts it, 'a great many experiments destined to establish in what way the presence of a living creature matters have failed to find any simpler way of doing so than by substituting presence with absence – a method which features in scientific literature under the watered-down name 'bird collections.'' What I felt standing before these grouse is of course not the same feeling I had in the tent at Point Pelee, gazing at a very different sort of bird collection on my iPhone. But the birds in the drawers, like the birds on Merlin, are at once present and not present. They are all birds become data, corresponding to the records in both Merlin's database and the bird morgue's antiquated card catalogue. AI-powered birding apps are merely an extension of this human tendency to quantify everything, to master it and make it intelligible on our own terms. The way humans allow themselves to be present to the non-human world can make the difference between understanding a bird as a companion or as counted, as kin or as skin. On the morning of Oct. 18, 2024, I hoisted my canoe onto my shoulders and made a short portage to the shore of the Speed River. It was World Migratory Bird Day, autumn version. The birds that arrived at Point Pelee six months ago were now on a gruelling journey back to the Southern Hemisphere. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology named the occasion 'Global Big Day,' as it did for the May event, in which 1.3 million people participated worldwide to report 7,725 different species in a single day. I tried to repress the thoughts of Global Big Day as Global Big Data Day when I put my paddle in the water and glided west to the Blackbridge portage. At this time of year, birdsong is somewhat sparse on the Speed River. But as I made my way to the bridge, Merlin lit up frequently to the echoing whistle of northern cardinals, the jeering of blue jays, and the frequent 'conk-la-ree!' of red-winged blackbirds. I stopped at Blackbridge to enter these very ordinary birds into my eBird checklist, then headed back toward Mill Pond, a big draw for shorebirds. Along the way, Merlin generated a list of what a real birder might call 'good birds': species I had not yet ticked off my list, including a golden-crowned kinglet, a northern flicker, a swamp sparrow, and a winter wren. I saw none of them, but Merlin heard them. eBird tutorials suggest that it's acceptable to count a bird you have only heard and not seen. But with the Tilley hats still watching over my shoulder, I resisted this shortcut and allowed the 'good birds' to flit by like so many AI hallucinations. Instead, I parked my canoe near a mudflat where a predictable crew of ring-billed gulls, Killdeer, and Sandpipers had gathered. I counted them, entered them into the eBird app, and pointed the canoe toward home. I had done my duty. I had fed the digital Moloch of bird counting. The trip left me feeling empty inside. On the way back, I spotted a large white bird standing in the reeds by the shore. This was a great egret, a bird I know without the help of Merlin. I have often sat in the canoe at a safe distance from these majestic creatures, trying not to scare them, satisfied simply to be in their presence and watch them fish. This rare opportunity to quietly and mutually observe a being very different from myself has been a source of great solace to me, a humble meditation. The egret was aglow in the direct sunlight, and I was transfixed. But that day I felt something else: the tug of eBird was nagging me. 'Count it,' the app told me impatiently. 'Submit a photo. We have to feed the database!' As I reached for my iPhone, the egret let out a disdainful, prehistoric croak and took flight. I missed the shot. Presence is a manifestation of attention. You are where your attention is. This is why a person might get upset if you look down at your phone during a conversation, an act that has led to the humorous portmanteau 'phubbing' (snubbing by phone). As Vinciane Despret reminds us, making ourselves present to the more-than-human world must also be understood in terms of attention. Or as she puts it, ''giving your attention' to other beings and at the same time acknowledging the way other beings are themselves attentive. It is another way of acknowledging importance.' Is it possible that eBird is an inducement not for birdwatching but for bird phubbing? Did I phub the egret? In spite of what Merlin, and science in general, confidently tell me about Ardea alba, it's what I don't know about the Great egret that captivates my attention. I am comfortable with the fact that the egret is a construct of my imagination, just as it is a construct of science, a construct of art, a construct of indigenous ways of knowing. Can you ever really know an Egret? To be sure, collecting bird data with or without apps – to keep track of the avian population is a crucial part of a broad conservation effort that goes well beyond the wellbeing of birds. And I encourage everyone to take part in the Global Big Day. But nature connection is one of those few aspects of human experience that advanced technologies simply cannot automate. So let's not lose sight of the version of conservation offered by J. Drew Lanham: 'Be the bird. See the miracle in each and every one of them. Conservation is the act of caring so intensely for something that you want only the best for its survival and future being. That intense care and love, is called conservation.'
WIRED
07-05-2025
- WIRED
Birdfy's Polygon Smart Birdhouse Wants to Make Your Backyard Visitors Famous
You'll definitely want to keep in mind the nesting seasons for your geographic region, as this is not a device for year-round use. The camera needs to be kept above 32 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal operation, and birds' nesting instinct is activated within a fairly rigid window of time. If you're in the US, the US Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency has a handy chart of date ranges by state during which you'll want to keep nesting boxes up. Maybe Maybe Maybe Aside from the questionable nesting hole size advice, a couple of other Polygon features gave me pause. There's no roof overhang to keep rain from blowing into the hole; this was confirmed by the fact that I saw water droplets inside the nest every time it rained. The inside is also varnished, something experts explicitly advise against, though there is no discernible odor. After five weeks of the birdhouse being up in my Pacific Northwest backyard within the nesting season window and not having so much as one curious visitor (at least, not one captured on camera), I reached out to Robyn Bailey, project director of NestWatch at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with photos of my Polygon setup to see if something about it might be scaring the birds away. 'If you live somewhere that is warm, then I would have expected something to at least have gone inside it to look by now,' she said. She did point out that she has a similar nest box from another brand and noticed that the inside is quite cavernous compared to what birds typically prefer in the wild. 'I think most birds shy away from boxes that are much bigger than their needs, preferring to nest in a box that is just the right size,' she said. "I don't know exactly why … maybe it saves them the energy of having to make a much bigger nest to fill the bottom, or maybe it has something to do with temperature regulation. That said, if there is a shortage of good nesting sites, I would expect something to use the box.' Something else I couldn't help but note: The camera makes an audible click when triggered either by movement or by opening the live view in the app. The sound is unfortunately further amplified by the roomy size and smooth varnish of the box. Given that birds are scared off my feeders when a door opens 30 feet away, I can see how sudden noises from inside their actual nest might be a deal-breaker. Photograph: Kat Merck Bailey pointed out, however, that because birds are most active during the day, there's enough ambient noise around that a camera click may not register, though this could vary widely from species to species. Despite the camera having quite decent infrared night vision, I will likely refrain from checking on any nesting birds at night, since they will be more likely to become startled by the noise. So, in the meantime, I wait. At least I can say that the Polygon's Wi-Fi connection has never faltered despite the box being about 20 feet away from the house, and the 3-watt solar panel has kept the camera's 5,200-mAh battery well-charged. If and when birds do decide to pay a visit, I'm confident the Polygon will be ready.
