Bird Buddy review: A gorgeous gadget that connects you to your garden wildlife

Gareth Butterfield links up with his feathered friends through the AI-enabled Bird Buddy smart bird feeder Sign up to our email newsletter for daily updates on what’s happening in and around Birmingham We have more newsletters I have always derived a lot of pleasure from watching the birds visit my garden. I have a feeding station I keep topped up with seeds and fat balls, and the ever-changing array of feathered visitors I get is fascinating. But it’s something I’d never be able to get a close look at.

Until now. I’m thrilled to report there is now such a thing as a smart bird feeder. I’ve been testing one for a few months, and it might be my new favourite thing.

It’s called a Bird Buddy , and it’s a little house-shaped feeder with a seed container, a tray from which your birds can pick at said seed and then a wireless camera pointing at the landing spot. This camera is very clever. It’s broadly the shape and size of a video doorbell, but it hosts AI technology to not only monitor the birds as they arrive to eat the seed, but also to recognise and identify individual species.

Yes, that’s right, this high-tech bird feeder will teach you the differences between the birds that visit your garden. It’s a joyous thing to use. It links up to a smartphone app and, wherever you are, you can access the camera and watch the birds coming and going.

But you don’t have to log in to keep a check on who’s nibbling your sunflower hearts. The Bird Buddy will alert you when you get a visitor calling in by sending you a notification. This notification takes you to the app and delivers you a “postcard” with a photograph of the bird.

It will have already worked out – to the best of its abilities – what it is, and you can then flick through a series of digital Polaroids and even a video. You can then save them to a cloud storage or share them with your friends. It’s marvellous.

Even as I write this, I’ve just had a postcard sent through, my second one today, with pictures of one of the current regulars – a female blackbird. She’s clearly nesting because she stuffs her beak full of seeds and mealworms, before flying off into the privet hedge nearby. I get a lot of starlings, blue tits call in all the time, the occasional sparrow stops off for a bite, and a resident robin pops up from time to time.

But the other day I was over the moon to receive a postcard from a bird I haven’t seen in my garden before – and certainly one of the most beautiful ones I’ve had in the garden – a male bullfinch. I wouldn’t have spotted it if it wasn’t for the Bird Buddy, but now I have a video and a cluster of pictures of this stunning bird. The Bird Buddy can be hung from a tree, wall-mounted, or mounted on a post, and there are accessories available to attract birds, such as a water feeder, a suet ball holder and a fruit holder.

There’s also a solar panel available, and this seems like a good idea, because the camera’s battery lasts less than a week on a busy feeding station, and it takes a long time to charge – so keeping it topped up will be a bonus. A basic starter pack costs around £200, and there’s a fairly long waiting time, but it’s beautifully packaged and made, and accessories include a handy scoop for filling the seed hopper. It did take me a while to get things working properly.

Any new feeder will spook birds to start with, so it took a couple of weeks for them to trust it. And then I was noticing birds were being missed. It turned out the background was important, and I moved it away from any sun glare and the postcards were soon coming in thick and fast.

It has to be said, the AI detection is far from flawless. My female blackbird often foxes the camera, and it usually insists it’s a redstart. But, that said, after a few corrections it’s become much better at picking her out.

And that’s one of the genius things about the software. You’re linked up to the Bird Buddy community, and if the AI really doesn’t have a clue, and you’re a bit stumped, you can reach out to other users and let them help you. You can even take part in a crowd-based study of birds which have fooled the AI and flick through a selection of mystery images to help it learn.

Truth be told, a lot of these images are from America, which seems to be the biggest market by a long way, but the number of Bird Buddy users in the UK is growing all the time. And I’m really not surprised. If you like watching the birds in your garden the Bird Buddy gives you a gorgeous viewpoint of everything that comes and goes.

It’s very addictive. It feels like the Bird Buddy is at an early point in its development but, because of this marvellous community-based system, you become part of its constant improvement. And it’s a wonderful journey to be on.

Waking up to news that you’ve unlocked a new type of bird in the early hours of the morning, or receiving a postcard from your garden visitors while you’re on holiday, is such a lovely thing. It might feel like a bit of an indulgence, spending £200 on a bird feeder. But it’s honestly one of the nicest additions you can make to a wildlife garden.

I absolutely love it. .