Haikubox

I have been a birdwatcher for decades and have built up a fair knowledge of the birds that come to my feeders. And I knew there were birds in the area that I never saw, but sometimes heard. The Haiku Box has proven that I knew only about 25% of the birds that can be heard from my yard and I am so excited to learn about the rest. I put up my box up in mid-April 2024 and it is now early June 2024. The box has identified nearly 100 species of birds that can be heard from my yard! I wasn’t sure what the range would be but I’m pleased to say it is hearing birds I know are multiple blocks away. The app has so many incredible features. I started by listening to the short recordings - those are made by my box, usually during the current day. Then I can compare what I hear with the clearly linked recordings available under “About” and “EBird”. I can click to see a bar graph of which days that bird has visited our area, on a circle graph that shows me times of day the bird is most active, and much more information. The app is well designed and almost completely intuitive. The only thing that didn’t make sense to me right off is the blue screen shown when you click on the button that looks like a collection of solid circles. It turns out that is a graph of the sound you hear in the recording and if I play the recording while looking at the graph, I can understand the components of the bird’s song. And if I click on the EBird button, the recordings available there via the “Listen” button have the same kinds of graphs. This has allowed me to start learning to separate out the songs of different birds as well as helping me learn the varieties of song that type of bird might sing. Given that it is spring, the birds are all very vocal and I’m learning so much! The HaikuBox is fairly expensive but it and the app are without a doubt my favorite purchase this year. I realize it isn’t 100% correct all the time, but it has such richness that there is something for every bird lover. I’ve been so excited about it that I’ve shown it to everyone I can!

This is a fabulous concept, but sadly it only seems to have about a 66% accuracy rate from what I can tell. Human birders need songsrepeated twice to be certain on an ID. This machine tends to only take a note or two and then take a stab at an identification. If only it were accurate with regard to some of the rare birds it claims to have been in or passed over my yard. This technology has a great promise if a little bit more time is allocated to ensure an accurate spectrograph is assigned to the correct bird. At this point, I cannot trust it for rare bird identifications and neither should you.

The Haikubox and the app are terrific. I highly recommend getting this device if you love birds! There are a number of ways to view the data, and you can receive notifications for selected, already heard birds and also previously unheard birds. The app is also attractive and naturally in dark mode, my preference My wish list for the app includes being able to manage the timeframe for notifications on my own (currently it’s every 12 hours for each species), and to add alerts for birds that have not yet been heard by the app. I don’t want to get alerts every three seconds for house finches but I would select something more frequent than the current setting of once or max twice a day for snowy owls. Is it 100% accurate? I’m fairly certain the many red shouldered hawk and possibly the yellow bellied sapsucker calls it hears are actually Blue Jays, and while redheaded woodpeckers could potentially appear here, I think it’s the red bellied woodpecker that it also heard at the same time. I can’t wait til mockingbird breeding season lol. No artificial intelligence is going to be 100% accurate, but I think this one is very close. Support is also terrific - they reply quickly and with detail (that could probably go onto the website to avoid support questions :)

Easy to install and literally no learning curve-I am so thrilled with my Haiku box. It’s a must for all bird lovers. It’s making me aware of birds that I didn’t know were nearby. At night it identifies the owls (and more!)! So cool!! I could go on and on. Bottom line, if you love birding, the Haiku box is a must-have. Put your name on the waitlist ASAP! I waited over a year and don’t regret one second. They are now back in production so your wait should be minimal.

I love my Haikubox! It helps me monitor what birds are in my yard or migrating through. I can see the day-to-day differences in number of calls and songs and activity of birds. I am astounded at the changes in the species visiting as the seasons change. I highly recommend it! The company is excellent to work with. If you email a question they answer promptly. Love it!

The haiku box is a must for every bird lover or even if you are not a bird lover, the Haiku box will enhance your outdoor life in your backyard. Our haiku box picks up birds song not only in our yard and at our feeders, but also birds that we may not be able to see. So when the birds arrive on our app in real time, we step outside our lanai and most of the time have the privilege of seeing birds that we would have missed if it were not for. the haiku box. We also catch all the migrators heading through and over our home in Canada and Florida on their seasonal journeys. . We love our haiku box, so much that it travels with us. It is compact, easily travels and easily connects to our home wi-fi. The developers are incredibly friendly and responsive. As a photographer I especially appreciate being alerted to new species in my neighborhood.

Who know I had so many species of birds in my backyard. Haikubox is very easy to use and install. Needs to be close to WiFi so that it can communicate with their server to identify the birds by their songs. Sends alerts to the Haikubox App with pictures of the birds, and info about each bird and you can also listen to what they sound like. I highly recomend this product to people who want to know what type of birds they have in their backyard.

Easy app to use. Can track migration by looking at the Haikubox reports from others distributed around the country. Be at the ready to spot what is coming your way.