Through June 2023, over 133 million bird songs and calls were identified and recorded by Haikuboxes across North America. This includes the busy migration and nesting period when bird vocalization is at its peak and each Haikubox may collect over 3,000 identifications per day.
This analysis was conducted in July 2023 and showed that five species (House Sparrow, House Finch, Northern Cardinal, Carolina Wren and Tufted Titmouse) made up over 35 percent of all birds identified by North American Haikuboxes. An incredible 15.9 million House Sparrow identifications were made during this time, with 52 Haikuboxes each identifying over 10,000 House Sparrows (House Sparrows clearly love these houses!).
15 species (American Robin, House Wren, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, American Goldfinch, Common Grackle, California Towhee, American Crow, Gray Catbird, Carolina Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco, Song Sparrow, Mourning Dove, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and Lesser Goldfinch) made up an additional 31 percent of all identifications, with the remaining birds (over 500 total species) making up the final third of all identifications.
The image below shows the distribution of the top 150 identified species, and highlights the dominance of the few species noted above.
This kind of widespread nature monitoring is only possible with the help of Haikubox owners who serve as community scientists. Future research is expected through a collaboration with researchers at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Please see previous blog posts for details on previous analyses of Haikubox abundance data.