Watch Them Eat

A bird feeder? With a camera on it, so you can see who visits from your phone? And a solar panel to keep said camera alive without having to plug it in? That’s pretty sweet. What’s more, it features space for both seed and suet and can identify birds with its internal AI.

Neat, right?

And that about covers it.

Now, like many people, I took an interest in putting out feeders while stuck at home in 2020. Our house at the time butted up against some woods, so we got a wide variety of backyard birds swooping by.

So, since there’s not much else to say about the product, I’m going to use this space to share my stray observations on some common feeder visitors you might see if you buy this thing:

Woodpeckers

Woodpeckers of all varieties–flickers, red-bellieds, hairys, downys–have some of the absolute ugliest calls in the avian kingdom. A harsh squeak for some, or an angry clucking sound for others. They’re also quite aggressive, do not enjoy feeding with other birds present, and move with a sort of unnerving twitchiness. Despite this, they are my absolute favorite backyard birds. Personally, I love the red-bellied woodpecker the most, though I’m also partial to seeing the golden underwings of a northern flicker as it sets flight.

Blue Jays

Big beautiful assholes, the whole lot of them. Furthermore, they possess a vast and impressive vocabulary. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve whipped out the Merlin App, thinking I heard something exciting and new, only to find it’s just another jay noise.

Gray Catbirds

An amazing tail; a fun, beautiful song–if the gray catbird were a bright color, it would be one of the most popular birds in America.

Starlings

Do you know who Eugene Schieffelin is? Well, I’ll tell you: in 1890, he released 60 starlings imported from Europe into Central Park, resulting in the first successful starling nesting in North America. He died 16 years later in 1906 at the age of 79. And this is unfortunate for those of us who enjoy having bird feeders, because if he’s already deceased, it means we cannot try him for his crimes against humanity and sentence him to death.

Cardinals

Hipster bird opinion here: while the male cardinal’s red hue is obviously sticking (and I’ve discussed previously how spoiled we are to just have cardinals flying around), the female cardinal is the more beautiful due to the starker contrast between her bright orange beak, intense black eyes, and subdued gray-brown feathering.

Sparrows

The NPCs of the backyard bird world.

Juncos

They won’t come to your feeder, but they will hang out under it, taking whatever falls to the ground. In my humble opinion, there’s nothing more delightful than watching a big group of juncos dig around and scavenge for seed the day after a snowstorm.

Those are my thoughts. Now go ahead and get yourself a bird feeder with a camera in it. And if you feel so inclined, share some backyard bird opinions in the comments.