Birdfy Nest Duo Review: My Own Private Nature Documentary | WIRED

Overview

Even though I've been a bird-watcher most of my life, nothing prepared me for the experience of witnessing—on my phone—the entire process of birds being born in my own backyard.

I’ve maintained a regular “dumb” nest box for years, the birthplace of generations of black-capped chickadees. I’ve seen them going in and out, but I always wondered what was happening in there, especially the year I opened up the box in the fall and found five deceased fledglings at the bottom. How could this have happened? I wondered.

Details

Thanks to the Birdfy Nest Duo smart nesting box and its built-in thermometer and hygrometer, I now at least have an educated guess. (The poor things likely overheated during an early season heat wave.) Being able to watch the entire nesting operation from all angles, starting with excavation and egg-laying and ending in hatching and fledging, has been one of the most educational and entertaining bird-watching experiences I have ever had, and something I'd recommend to anyone interested in birds, nature, or just life science in general.

Birdfy makes three smart nest boxes in addition to the Duo. The original, the Birdfy Nest, has one camera—located inside the box—and can only hang from an eye hook screwed into the top. There's also a version made out of solid fir in contrast to the others’ lightweight bamboo. I have also tested Birdfy’s artful Polygon, but persistent connection issues prevented me from using it this season.

I have not tested the first two single-camera versions, but I can't imagine not having a second camera outside the hole to see who's unexpectedly poking their head in. (At one point in my testing, it was a confused flicker; another, a curious starling—this is when I learned chickadees can hiss). It's also critical to be able to pole-mount the box to keep it away from predators.

The Nest Duo is substantial—16 inches tall and about 8 pounds—with one 1080p HD camera facing the nest entry hole on the exterior and another tucked discreetly inside the nest box itself. There's also an internal hygrometer (humidity) and thermometer (temperature) that show readings on the live view in Birdfy's easy-to-use app. There are four easy-to-install, screw-on entry hole sizes for different species, from 0.9 inches for wrens up to 2 inches for starlings or bluebirds, along with corresponding metal predator guards to prevent chewing. The entire side of the box opens with a latch for easy cleaning and access.

In the app, each screen capture appears as a split-screen image, which you can tap to view 20-second videos (with audio) of both the inside and the outside of the box. The videos are immediately downloadable and shareable—no subscription is needed.

The screen captures work much like one of Birdfy's smart bird feeders, but with images shunted to sections labeled “Prelude,” “Nesting,” “Brooding,” “Nestling,” “Fledgling,” and “End.” There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for what process the app thought was happening at the time (for example, if a nestling was simply turned around, the app asked if it should label it as “Fledgling”), but this story format was easy enough to ignore onscreen.

In March of this year, at the beginning of nesting season on the West Coast, I installed the Duo with the 1-inch entry hole on a pole stand and mounted the included solar panel below the box with hose clamps. Black-capped chickadees were consistently interested, popping in and looking around, but something was preventing them from staking a claim. It took me a while to realize they were looking askance at the holes on the metal tray “floor,” which is perforated for drainage. The idea is that this tray can be inserted into one of a series of slots to increase or decrease the nest cavity depth, depending on your local species' preference.

To cover the holes, I ended up taping on a square I cut from a moss mat left over from one of my son's school projects. While this was probably not the most environmentally friendly choice (and could have impeded drainage, had the box ever leaked), one chickadee loved it, starting the excavation process within hours of the mat's installation. This operation took about four to five days, after which another week was taken up by gathering moss, and finally a layer of fur. (I was never sure why this was, until I saw a similar type of “fur” on the baby birds’ heads—it’s camouflage for when they have their heads down asleep!)

The mother chickadee laid seven eggs and incubated them while the father chickadee brought her a succession of moths and fat green inchworms. All of the eggs ended up hatching, but curiously, only four babies remained at the time of fledging.

One evening (both cameras' night vision capabilities are excellent), I saw the mom carry one of the baby birds, who appeared to be alive, out of the nest and return without it, which was shocking to witness, but I never did discover what happened to the others—the camera sensor didn't seem to capture every event. Until that point, I thought it did, but the absence of evidence for the other nestlings' fate proved otherwise.

When a triple-digit heat wave unexpectedly hit in late May, I watched the temperature reading in the black-sided box creep up to about 96 degrees Fahrenheit—107 degrees can be fatal to cavity-nesting fledglings. To cool things down, I had to put ice packs and an umbrella on top of the box, risking disturbing the birds. I imagine if I lived somewhere that regularly hit temperatures in the 90s or 100s, this box and its heat-absorbing black paint would be too hot to use at all.

Other than this unfortunate event, I was able to leave the nest box completely alone. There were no dropped connections or Wi-Fi issues (the Duo runs on 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi only and uses cloud storage). If something does go wrong with the camera or battery, there's a waterproof remote on a 10-foot-long cord with a reset button and a port to charge the camera remotely. During one extended cloudy stretch, I did have to use the remote to charge the battery one time with a power bank, but otherwise the solar panel kept the battery charged indefinitely—it's still charged to 98 percent as I write this, in late August.

Though the birds fledged in late May, I still can't get over how many things I learned while checking in on them every day: For instance, that chickadees deliberately choose spiders to feed new hatchlings due to their brain-developing taurine content, and that new baby birds poop fecal sac “packets” that look exactly like a little diaper, which the mother bird will then remove from the nest to deter predators. (Or, as I witnessed many times, eat it herself or feed it to another nestling.)

The Nest Duo isn't cheap at nearly twice the price of Birdfy's single-camera nest, but it's about as seamless an experience as you can expect for a smart nest box. I highly recommend it as a gift for friends, family members, or yourself.

Key Takeaways

• Even though I've been a bird-watcher most of my life, nothing prepared me for the experience of witnessing—on my phone—the entire process of birds being born in my own backyard
• I’ve maintained a regular “dumb” nest box for years, the birthplace of generations of black-capped chickadees
• Thanks to the Birdfy Nest Duo smart nesting box and its built-in thermometer and hygrometer, I now at least have an educated guess
• Birdfy makes three smart nest boxes in addition to the Duo
• I have not tested the first two single-camera versions, but I can't imagine not having a second camera outside the hole to see who's unexpectedly poking their head in