Audio, though often forgotten and overlooked, plays a significant part in birdwatching and wildlife observation because it helps engages the audience: it delivers the information, evokes emotional responses, and accentuates what’s on the screen. Audio can bring your video to life and adds another level of engagement. High-quality audio can dramatically enhance your video and deliver the most satisfying birdwatching experience to your audience. Each bird has its unique sound character, which can be an exhaustible source of inspiration to learn about nature. And even passers-by can enjoy the enchanting melody of birdsong.
Birding by Ear
Many birders and birdwatchers primarily learn how to identify birds by what they see rather than what they hear. Most birds can be identified by their appearances, such as plumage, colors, and field markings. However, expert birders identify 90% of birds by ear. Since each bird has a distinct bird call, which distinguishes them from other bird species, learning to identify birds by sound allows birders to identify many birds. By tuning your ear to a bird’s song, you can locate birds more easily, rather than relying solely on short, momentary flickers through dense trees. Birders who recognize birdsong can also enjoy birdwatching when low light and poor visibility can limit visual birding. And it’ll be such a pleasure to wake up in the melodious music composed by the greatest artists in the wilderness.
The Importance of Birdsong
A bird’s song is another clear marker for the bird’s identification. Through their calls and songs, you can know about their habits and health status. And more importantly, the musical therapy of birdsong can be of great assistance in repelling negative thoughts and feelings. Most people find birdsong relaxing and reassuring, which helps humans restart mentally. Bird sounds encourage people to pay more attention to their auditory environment. In addition, the birdsong enjoys positive associations, especially with spring and summer, and therefore provokes positive emotions among people who hear it.
Why Your Bird Box Camera Needs a Built-in Microphone?
A video primarily has two significant elements: image and audio. When recording video, it is important to pay close attention to the audio and visual aspects of your content, as audio is just as important as video. Even if the video has some flaws and turns out to be pixelated or out of focus but the audio is clear, it can still be an overall success. And as previously stated, birding by ear is equally as important as birding by eye, to deliver marvelous birdwatching to the audience, there must be a microphone inside your birdhouse to record all the tweety comings and goings. However, recording high-quality audio in an outdoor location can be quite difficult. One of the best ways to ensure better audio quality is to get close to the birds by incorporating the mini microphone into your bird box camera. By doing so, there will be less background noise and better fidelity in your audio. External mic-based systems may deliver better birdwatching. However, most of them are way too bulky to fit into the nest box and most importantly they are not necessarily made waterproof.
Improved Audio Quality – 7000 Hz
Many bird calls have frequency ranges between 1000 Hz and 8000 Hz, which places them in the ‘sweet spot’ of human hearing. At the high end, many warblers, sparrows, and a variety of other birds produce sounds that reach 8,000 Hz and above. However, the microphone of your bird box camera, especially the internal one, will have a limited frequency response. And as we grow older, we all lose the ability to hear higher frequencies. That’s why we improved our microphone design for recording wildlife sounds. In comparison with our previous model, the 2nd Gen WiFi bird box camera has doubled the frequency response to 7,000 Hz (16,000 Hz max.) to deliver much higher quality audio, which enables you to hear all sound more lifelike and takes your birdwatching experience to a higher level.
We have fully upgraded our series of bird box cameras with the enhanced microphone. Here, we’ve listed some of our bestsellers over the last few months.
WiFi Bird Box Camera Bundle
This kit is everything you need to start birdwatching. The wireless bird box camera records pin-sharp images in 3MP and has a highly sensitive microphone (7000 Hz) to let you hear every cheep and ruffle inside. Push message notification is also available when the bird box camera detects any activities inside the birdhouse. Moreover, this wireless bird box camera is IP66 waterproof, which gives you peace of mind in outdoor applications. Made of natural cedarwood, this birdhouse welcomes small birds like bluebirds, chickadees, and wrens. The entrance is large enough for a variety of birds to slip in while keeping larger predators out. The roof and front panel can be opened easily to clean it out at the end of the season.
Long Range Wireless Outdoor IP Bird Box Camera
Specially designed for monitoring wood ducks and other waterfowl, this long-range wireless outdoor IP bird box camera can support a wireless range of up to 200 meters. Using the iCSee app, you can watch live or recorded footage of nesting birds on any iOS or Android device in 1080p HD. 24/7 continuous recording is also guaranteed thanks to the infrared LEDs to deliver pin-sharp B&W images in low-light conditions at a maximum night vision range of 1 meter. By the way, this bird box camera can be not only powered from a mains supply but also by an external rechargeable battery using the 12V battery cable.
Birdhouse Camera Network Cable with Recording
This birdhouse camera provides a more reliable solution to stream live feeds over the Internet with little interference and image degradation, using a single Ethernet cable to transmit data and power. It features industry-leading video clarity and color reproduction with an invisible night vision function to secure round-the-clock live streaming to your phones. Equipped with invisible infrared LEDs, this birdhouse camera will automatically switch to night vision in low-light conditions. Designed for use in enclosures, this bird box camera is outfitted with a 2.5mm adjustable, wide-angle lens to capture a 120° field of view. A memory card slot is also available for recording (SD card NOT included).
How to Enable Audio on Your Phone, PC & TV?
Here we have summarized the methods to enable audio on your devices.
To Enable Audio on Your Phone:
Before you begin, make sure that your bird box camera is connected to your home network. Download the iCSee app, and add your camera to the system. Open iCSee and go to your bird box camera live view. Make sure your phone is not muted and click the button highlighted above to enable the audio on your phone.
To Enable Audio on Your PC:
As usual, you need to download the VMS software on your computer and add the bird box camera to the system. Make sure the devices are connected to the same network. Once the bird box camera has been successfully added, go to Device Config, and then under Default Group, select Encode Config. In the next window, you’ll see the specifications of the media source. Now tick both Video and Audio. Finally, make sure to select Apply, then OK.
To Enable Audio on Your TV:
For a bird box camera with a TV cable connection, you only connect the 3-in-one cable to the HDMI box and connect the HDMI box to your TV with an HDMI cable. Then the audio will be on once you open the TV. For a bird box camera that comes with a wireless connection, both video and audio signals will transmit wirelessly to the wireless receiver, and then you only need to use an HDMI cable to connect the receiver to your TV.
