If you build it, they might come
Unlike hanging a bird feeder, hanging a nesting box in the yard is no guarantee that a pair of birds will settle in and put down roots. Birds’ nesting habits vary by species, and species vary by region and habitat. But there are many other factors involved, like the box’s height and location, competition, predators — in other words, the magic might not happen. Birdfy offers some guidance on this. According to the guidelines provided by the National Wildlife Federation, the Birdfy bird houses are fit for Eastern and Western bluebirds and sparrows, and you might attract chickadees and some wrens.
It took about a week, but eventually my phone chirped with a notification — something was happening. I looked at the video and first saw a small beak — and then a feathered head and body — cautiously investigating the box. It was a common house sparrow, probably one of the many that hang out in my nearby juniper tree.
Even with the camera’s built-in light turned off (I worried it would spook the birds), the video was bright and sharp. When you press the play button on the app for recordings or live video, the image takes five to seven seconds to load, which is longer than with any of my home-security cameras. But this bird cam is located 200 feet from the Wi-Fi router inside our people house. You can then download it to your phone to share on social media, and it becomes part of a “story” on the Birdfy app, which lets you track the nesting progress of your tenants.
The nesting box used the same Birdfy app as the company’s feeders, and it functions in the same way. Writer Rachel Cericola explains the app’s features in her review of the feeder.
After a week, the bird box didn’t draw any additional attention, despite the housing shortage in my backyard. I thought maybe the close proximity to another (occupied) nesting box might be the issue, so I moved the Birdfy box to a different location on the other side of the yard. Within a day, a pair of bluebirds started checking it out.
For several days, a male bluebird would show up every morning for house tours, sticking his head in as if taking measurements for a sofa. Then one morning I checked in via the app to see a few twigs arranged on the floor of the house — the couple had apparently signed the lease and started to move in.
In addition to being transfixed by the birds’ bobbing and twitching inside the small space, I was charmed by their delicate chirps. The camera’s microphone easily picked up conversations between the bird couple as they planned their life together in their new temporary home. In a few weeks I expect the gentle tweets will be replaced by the caterwauling of chicks screaming for breakfast.
All in all, the Birdfy nesting box met my expectations. The camera images look good, and it maintained connection to my Wi-Fi router. According to the battery meter in the app, the solar panel kept the battery fully charged — even on cloudy days — though increased chick activity may draw on it more. And the whole shebang held up well through spring storms with heavy wind and rain.
In prior years I’ve enjoyed watching all of the activity around my non-camera nesting boxes, and I’ve always wanted to know what was going on inside them. Hopefully the happy couple who’ve claimed this one will continue building their family, and I’ll get to watch the feedings and fledging as the season continues. I will be posting updates to this article as things progress.
It’s been two months. What happened?
It’s mid-July now. Shortly after this article first published, the bluebirds who were beginning to settle in, abruptly abandoned the birdhouse to find a place without a broker’s fee. Not long after, a pair of sparrows arrived for a house inspection. They seemed to like it, and began building their nest.
But the sparrows also took flight, and for days the birdhouse was empty. Then finally another bluebird couple (or maybe the original — I didn’t ask them to sign a guestbook) started beaking around. This time they seemed to like the work the sparrows began, finished the nest, and before long five little blue eggs appeared.
Once the chicks hatched, the activity in the nesting box took off. Between the comings and goings of the parents, and the growing chicks’ wrestling for attention, the Birdfy app would send me alerts every few minutes. It was a bit much, so I eventually muted the notifications and just checked on the latest stock of recordings once or twice a day for the next couple weeks.
While the frequency of recordings quadrupled, the Birdfy’s solar panel was able to keep up with the increased activity, never letting the power level dip below 90 percent even through rainy or overcast days.
Yesterday, 34 days and 3,113 recordings later, I was sitting outside when I noticed the parents hadn’t appeared outside the birdhouse in a while. I opened up the app, and there in my netbox’s “story” were a series of new videos tagged “Fledging.” In the course of several videos, the fluffy little birdletts could be seen flapping each other with their wings and poking their heads out of the hole. Eventually, one by one, they gathered their courage and leaped.
The last video I have is the mother bluebird alone, picking up some stray pieces of waste and carrying it out of the house — cleaning up after the kids as parents always do.
This article was edited by Jon Chase and Grant Clauser.
