284. Bird Buddy

Our listener Tatiana shares a new toy that has taken her bird watching to a whole new level. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Nora McInerny and It’s Going To Be Okay. 

This podcast is a group project of sorts, where we all contribute to this collection of okay things. 

We got this email from Tatiana: 

Since one might argue this is a bird podcast, I think you’ll find this relevant. My ok thing starts Christmas morning 2023. My expert gift-giver husband comes through with the best gift a 30-something amateur birder could ever want – a bird buddy. This is not an ad, just a big fan here. It’s essentially a trail cam attached to the back of a bird feeder with an app you download on your phone to receive notifications when a visitor stops by – bird, squirrel, whatever it may be. It captures images, videos, and sound, and even helps identify the species. You can even share your visitors and see other users’ birds with their locations. It’s basically Instagram for bird nerds. Living the dream here Nora.

We get the bird buddy all set up in a nice quiet spot of my small suburban backyard and I just can’t even stand the excitement. SHOW ME THE BIRDS. Several days go by and I’m anxiously awaiting my first visitor. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. NONE. Not even a squirrel. Just a nice high resolution video of my dogs doing zoomies and my cat loafing on a lawn chair.

Until…DING! Several days later while I’m at work, I receive a notification that my bird buddy has a visitor…an oak titmouse!  A small, dainty greyish beige little cutie just hip hopping around my buffet offerings. I’m not a good enough birder to know if it’s a male or female but dang it was a cute tit Nora. And that was just the beginning. Before I know it, I’m getting notifications several times a day every day of a visitor at my bird buddy. And Nora, apparently I don’t have a very biodiverse backyard because they’re all tits. Several tits a day. And I love them all. These photo and video updates of the tits are making my day. And I’m sharing it with my coworkers, my friends, my family. They all want to see the tits. 1-5 notifications every day for the last 3 months means I’ve amassed many photos and videos of tits. I attached a couple so you can understand. We have a sassy tit, a hungry tit, sleepy tit, a bouncy tit, so many tits. It’s not the flashiest, most exotic bird out there but I sure do love them making several guest appearances in my day. 

Tatiana sent in some photos of her titmouse birds and we’ll put them on IG.