Another exciting way to leverage technology(data) to entertain ourselves.

There is a small bird that decided to nest in the gas fireplace vent on my patio. My wife made numerous attempts to remove the nest, but the bird was having none of it and continued to rebuild. We decided to let it go when we discovered eggs.

Fast forward to this morning. We were sitting on the back patio having a cup of coffee, enjoying the morning and I decided to figure out what kind of bird made itself a home on my patio.

As I was scouring the web there were all kinds of birds chirping around us, so I switched direction and started searching bird sounds and calls. (SQUIRREL) This is where technology and nature clash.

I found a site with a list of birds and their calls local to my region of North Carolina and begin listening to them on my phone. (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/how-to-learn-bird-songs-and-calls/ ) I proceeded to max the volume on my phone and directed it to the back yard. I began receiving some return calls and surprisingly the noise level of the birds began to grow.

When I played the Cardinal call, I noticed the pair of Cardinals that nest nearby began to frantically fly all around and perch in the trees above us.  As I played the call again, the male decided it was investigating and swooped in on us and abruptly turned away at the last minute. Every time I played the Cardinal call, he swooped in on us and appeared ready to attack. We decided to stop teasing the poor guy. He continued to hang around the porch all morning, still wondering what was going on.

Thank you, technology, for the speakers that can play bird calls that fool even the wildlife and thank you internet for making the calls available to access and play. I plan to step up my game and place my Bluetooth speaker in the yard and see what happens next. There was no harming of animals in the experiment, maybe only a little stress.

If you have tried this or are going to, I would love to hear your experiences.