Those of you familiar with Birdeez will clearly see why this new service was tailored to our demographics. Birds can be designed to carry messages on their bill, head, wings and tail. Once designed, if your bid is high enough, the birds are released into the wild to bring their messages to bird feeders and backyards everywhere.

It’s clear that the Google design team took a lesson from the Birdeez handbook, designing an interface suspiciously similar to the Birdeez bird identification interface.

We hope the next time you’re out birding, you’ll see one of our feathered friends tattooed with our messages. We at Birdeez believe this is the best way to reach the 48 million Americans who bird watch!

The Cooper’s Hawk is almost exclusively a bird eating bird, so much so that Male Cooper’s hawks have to watch out for the females. In birds of prey, the male is often smaller than the female, and in Cooper’s Hawks, the male is small enough that the female could call him lunch if he isn’t careful.

If you have a couple minutes to spare, check out a section of the video. If you have 15 minutes to spare, definitely watch the whole thing.

The Foster Library is located at 651 East Main Street, Ventura, CA 93001. Visit their official site for more info.

We will cover the basics of bird identification in this interactive workshop. I will show parents and children how to connect to nature using play, careful observation, books and smart phone technology. A smart phone is not required for this workshop but you may optionally download Birdeez for your iPhone at www.GetBirdeez.com

Read the official release

What bird would you like to see next? Let us know!

Shape: Perching
Size: Extra Small

Description:

The Pacific-slope Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis) is a small insectivorous bird of the family Tyrannidae. It is native to coastal regions of western North America, including the Pacific Ocean and the southern Sea of Cortez, as far north as British Columbia and southern Alaska, but is replaced in the inland regions by the Cordilleran Flycatcher. These two species were formerly considered a single species known as Western Flycatcher. In winter, both species migrate south to Mexico, where they are virtually indistinguishable from one another.

- from Wikipedia

Shape: Perching
Size: Very Small

Description:

The Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) is a small bird that lives in chaparral and bushland.

The Wrentit is a small, 15 centimetres (5.9 in) bird with uniform dull olive, brown, or grayish plumage. It has short wings and a long tail often held high (hence the comparison to wrens). It has a short bill and a pale iris. Given its retiring nature and loud voice, the Wrentit is more likely to be detected by its call than by sight. The distinct sound that it makes is similar to the sound of a ping-pong ball falling on the table.

-from Wikipedia

Find out all the details for the July 21 event.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is having a hands on learning festival this weekend, and we’ll be there.

Come join us for Tinker Fest on Sunday July 21 from 10 AM – 4 PM. Meet the Birdeez team and some of the other Santa Barbara Tinkers there!

What bird would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments.

Shape: Perching
Size: Small
Description:

The Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) is a passerine bird in the tyrant-flycatcher family. It breeds from southwest Oregon and California south through Central and South America. It occurs year-round throughout most of its range and migrates less than the other birds in its genus, though its northern populations are partially migratory.

The Black Pheobe has predominately black plumage, with a white belly and undertail coverts. The sexes are identical in color, and juveniles have brown feather tips and brown wing-bars. Its song is a repeated tee-hee, tee ho. It lives in a variety of habitats but is always near water. It is mainly insectivorous, and waits on a perch before flying out and catching its prey in the air. It makes an open cup nest which is placed under a cliff or a bridge and cemented in its place with mud.

- from Wikipedia

This is an event for adults and children, so bring your family if you are in the area! I hope to see you there!

More information on the flier: NatureTrack Connecting to Birds Jul 2013

Note! This is animated, so if you aren’t seeing the animation, make sure to view the post full screen. And “Refresh”.

Looks like we’ve touched every state! As we expected, Birdeez is more heavily used in cities than rural areas. In the future we hope to show you where birds have been identified with Birdeez in near real time!

What do you think? Do you have another Birdeez user in your neighborhood? Would you like to see an interactive map as part of Birdeez? Let us know in the comments.

Today, you can see the first video in our series on the Tree Swallows of Lake Los Carneros. Tree swallows were locally extinct when the Santa Barbara Audubon Society put up their bird boxes. Now they are back, and we get to watch them grow! Check it out.

Keep reading for a full summary of the day’s events.The Tree Swallows are doing well this year, nesting repeatedly. On June 16th I found 16 eggs! Eight were definitely tree swallows, four may have been and four I believe are Violet Green Swallow Eggs. We also found four chicks in the brush stage of development. We’ll keep visiting about once a week to keep track of how these guys are doing.

Also I saw many other birds here is a complete list of species (with Shape and Size for Birdeez Identification):

• Mallards (Duck-like, Large)
• Caspian Terns (Gull-like, Large)
• Cliff Swallows (Swallow, Small)
• Tree Swallow (Swallow, Small)
• Northern Rough-winged Swallow (Swallow, Small)
• Turkey Vultures (Hawk-like, Large)
• American Kestrels and Fledglings! (Hawk-like, Medium)
• White-tailed Kites (Hawk-like, Large)
• Red-tailed Hawks (Hawk-like, Large)
• Anna’s Hummingbird (Hummingbird, Extra Small)
• American Crow (Perching, Large)
• Rock Pigeon (Pigeon, Medium)
• House Finch (Perching, Small)
• Great-tailed Grackle (Perching, Medium)
• Western Scrub-Jay (Perching, Medium)
• Acorn Woodpecker (Tree-Clinging, Medium)
• Red-shouldered Hawk (Hawk-like, Large)
• American Goldfinch (Perching, Small)

I’m sure I missed a few while peering into bird boxes, but I think that is not a bad day of birding!

I hope to have more videos posted soon, so be sure to follow out BirdeezTube Channel on YouTube and check back on the blog soon!