What We Learn Listening to Birds with Dr David Mann, HaikuBox

Today I'm delighted to be joined in conversation by Dr David Mann founder of HaikuBox a unique smart device that allows you to listen to and monitor the bird calls in your garden 24/7.

Birdwatching offers a connection to the natural world that is accessible to all of us regardless of our backgrounds or our locations. Birding in urban areas is equally as rewarding as it is in more rural settings. 

I believe people protect what they love and understand and the HaikuBox is a wonderful tool to help us build a deeper relationship with the birds and acoustic landscape that surrounds us but is easily overlooked. Beyond being incredibly fun to learn who is sharing your home with you, the HaikuBox also gathers data that conservationists are able to use to both understand and conserve our avian friends. From the impacts of solar eclipses and wild fires to migration patterns the data you help collect is invaluable to learning more about our birds. 

David also shares some other fascinating uses for bioacoustics monitoring from Elephants in Africa and the signature whistles of Florida’s Bottlenose dolphins that can identify individuals to the Indigenous communities in northwestern Canada employing HaikuBox technology to ensure Beluga Whales aren't trapped when winter ice blocks the waterways. 

David reminds us how easy it can be to make a difference in this world, by learning to appreciate and then simple encourage and nurture the native wild plants and wildlife that share our homes, we can make an incredible impact.

Learn more about  David

Haikubox’s founder, David Mann, grew up in Syracuse, NY and spent a lot of time outdoors, no matter the weather. David was fascinated by birds and watched them at home and at nearby Sapsucker Woods on the Cornell University campus. 

David went on to study biology at Cornell and earned a PhD in biological oceanography from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where his research focused on animal bioacoustics. 

Haikubox was hatched when David and a colleague at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology realized they shared a common interest and the technical skills to develop an automatic birdsong identification tool. 

HaikuBox:

Haikubox brings consumers real-time bird alerts, birdsong recordings and loads of information about their backyard birds. Using its proprietary neural net trained on thousands of bird recordings, Haikubox listens 24/7 for every bird song and chirp and shares what it learns via the Haikubox Listen website and mobile app. 

Includes phone and smartwatch bird alerts, the ability to favorite, download and share birdsong recordings, and learning to identify hidden species by their vocalizations. Every Haikubox owner becomes a community scientist within the Haikubox network, contributing invaluable data for scientific research.

Website: www.haikubox.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haikubox/

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/haikubox.bsky.social