With just one click from the Haikubox app or Listen website, Haikubox owners can see their county's (US only; Canada and Europe are not yet included by BirdCast) bird migration data! A new Haikubox software update provides a link to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's BirdCast website. The Lab collaborates with Colorado State University and University of Massachusetts-Amherst in data collection and analysis. This team updates migration data daily, so website visitors can always see the latest number of migrating birds, their flight direction, and altitude.
BirdCast includes a list of "Expected nocturnal migrants" for each county, which Haikubox owners can compare to the Haikubox-identified birds in their yards. After a long journey, migrating birds are known to briefly settle in “stopover sites” where they can feed, rest and get ready for the next leg in their journey. Unlike their regular songs and calls, some bird species produce special nocturnal fligh calls (NFC) which may be picked up and identified by a Haikubox. However, the Haikubox neural net wasn’t explicitly trained to identify these special calls in the US; including these special calls will be addressed in future Haikubox releases.