Up Close With Bird Buddy
By Terry Rich, Golden Eagle Guest Blogger
For Christmas, my family gave me a Bird Buddy® bird feeder, the version with the solar roof panel to power the camera. If you are not familiar with this feeder, it has a built-in camera that sends both still photos and videos to your phone of the birds (and whatever else) visits the feeder.
Simple Setup
You can hang this feeder or mount it on a pole, and the hardware for both is included. I hung it because I have several different locations for a hanging feeder, and I wanted flexibility in placement. The solar panel is on one side of the roof only, so that also affects placement and orientation.
You need Wi-Fi to connect it to your phone, but don’t stop reading because it sounds like a hassle. We have a Roomba, IonVac, Alexa, pet camera, several Bluetooth speakers, Fire TV Sticks, wireless printers, Ring Video Doorbell, and who-knows-what at our house. Fortunately, the Bird Buddy setup was better than most. Well done.
Once I charged the camera, using my Android phone cord, I was ready to go. I was soon impressed with the battery life. Our yard is not great for solar due to our enormous cottonwood tree. Even in winter, its many big branches block the sun. But the camera ran for a week before getting down to around 10%. Good enough for me. You can then detach the camera from the feeder and bring it into the house for full charging. That’s a relatively minor inconvenience.
Bird Buddy® bird feeder
Look Who’s Coming To Lunch
Of course, the big deal about Bird Buddy is that it sends photos – called “postcards” – to your phone when a bird visits the feeder. This seems to work well. I get a notice, like I do for Facebook, email, or many other apps, which says something new has arrived. You then see several photos of the bird and a video. There is also a livestream option so you can just watch what’s going on.
The quality of the photos is very good. The camera provides a resolution of 5 megapixels for photos and 720p HD for videos. It has a built-in laser motion detector, so the camera is triggered by a bird moving in front of the lens. My photos have mostly been underexposed due to the way I have the camera situated and the bright overcast sky we’ve had for a few days now. Cropping and improving the exposure can be done in any photo editing program. And, of course, you can always reposition the feeder to change the lighting environment.
House Finch and Dark-eyed Junco by Bird Buddy
Bird Buddy has an array of additional options. These include connecting to other Bird Buddy feeders around the world. For example, a feeder I’m looking at right now is called Aloha Acres, a Bird and Bee Farm in Hawaii. You can also share the alerts you get with friends and family so that they’ll see what you see. And there are many other options I haven’t explored yet.
My only complaint is that the little LED light on the camera that signals several different situations is not bright enough. And for some odd reason, it’s placed behind the plastic cover rather than being exposed on the front. You cannot tell where it is until it lights up. Even then, it’s faint. You’ll need to shade the camera to see what the light is doing.
I’m also unsure the size of the feeding and perching area is adequate – it seems pretty small. I’ve seen photos of Pinyon Jays, Blue Jays, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers from other Bird Buddy feeders, but that’s got to be a bit of a squeeze for them. So far, I’ve had only Dark-eyed Juncos, House Sparrows, and House Finches. Chickadees and nuthatches would fit easily.
To provide more space for approaching the feeder and eating, I moved the feeder to my deck railing for one day. I immediately got a new species – fox squirrel – and in their futzing around they nearly knocked the feeder to the ground. Still, I think that anchoring the feeder on a larger flat place would payoff for species such as Northern Flickers, Mourning Doves, and jays. Plus, the squirrels will thank you very much!
Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch and Fox Squirrel by Bird Buddy
In summary, this has been a fun addition to my birding life. Most of us get good views of our feeder birds with binoculars because birds are already close. But Bird Buddy photos are literally from inches away – a view that we don’t get even with the best optics. And as always with the treasure hunt that is birding, I await the next surprise!
Terry can be reached at terryrichbrd@gmail.com