BirdWatchAI

Welcome! This manual is a complete, standalone guide to the BirdWatchAI desktop application and the BirdWatchAI community website. It walks you from unboxing your camera all the way through advanced features, settings, and the online community — with no prior experience assumed. You can read it top to bottom or jump to any section using the table of contents below. To save a copy as a PDF, open this file in any web browser and choose Print → Save as PDF.

1. What is BirdWatchAI?

BirdWatchAI is a Windows desktop application that turns any ordinary network security camera pointed at your bird feeder into an automatic, AI-powered bird-watching station. It watches your camera's video feed 24/7, notices when something moves, decides whether it's actually a bird, identifies the species using built-in artificial intelligence, and then saves a photo and a short video clip and (optionally) sends you a notification — all without you lifting a finger.

Key things it does for you:

• Identifies species automatically — recognizes up to 965 (or, with an optional model, 2,498) bird species entirely on your own PC.
• Captures the moment — saves a high-resolution snapshot and a short video of every visit, with on-image labels (species, confidence, time, temperature).
• Tells you what's rare — looks up how common each species is for your region and season.
• Notifies you — by email, mobile push (Pushover or NTFY), Windows toast, or even a digital photo frame.
• Builds a journal — a searchable history, life list, statistics dashboards, and gamified achievement badges.
• Connects you to others — optionally share sightings to the worldwide BirdWatchAI community feed at www.birdwatchai.com.

2. How it works (the big picture)

Before diving into menus, it helps to understand the flow. BirdWatchAI sits between your camera and you:

1. Your camera streams live video over your home Wi-Fi/network using a standard called RTSP.
2. BirdWatchAI connects to that stream and continuously watches for motion.
3. When motion is detected, the app grabs a high-resolution snapshot and starts recording a short clip.
4. An object detector checks whether the moving thing is actually a bird (filtering out squirrels, swaying branches, shadows).
5. The AI classifier identifies the species and gives a confidence percentage.
6. If confidence is high enough, the detection is saved (photo + video + data), enriched with temperature and rarity, and notifications fire.
7. You review everything in the history list, statistics, and (optionally) the online community.

The three things you need are: a Windows PC, an RTSP-capable camera, and this application. That's it — weather data, the AI models, and video tools are all built in and free.

3. System requirements

4. Installing the application

Option A — The installer (recommended)

1. Download BirdWatchAI_Setup_2.1.2.0.exe from www.birdwatchai.com (Download section).
2. Run it. If .NET 8 is missing, the installer offers to open the download page — install .NET, then re-run the setup.
3. Accept the license agreement.
4. Choose a destination. The default is C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\BirdWatch AI.
5. Optionally tick Create a desktop icon and/or Start BirdWatch AI when Windows starts (both off by default).
6. Finish, and optionally launch the app immediately.

The installer adds Start-menu shortcuts for the app and its Help, and creates the data folders (Data\Snapshots, Data\Videos, Data\Logs, etc.).

Option B — Portable ZIP

You can also download a ZIP, extract it anywhere, and run BirdWatchAI.exe directly. Because all data lives in a Data subfolder beside the program, the app is effectively portable.

Uninstalling

Use Windows Add or remove programs. The uninstaller asks whether to also delete your user data (snapshots, videos, logs, settings). Choose No to keep your bird photos and history.

5. Licensing & the free trial

BirdWatchAI includes a 14-day free trial with full functionality. After the trial you'll need a license key (a one-time purchase — see Section 48).

What you'll see on first run

• If you've never started a trial: a welcome dialog asks whether to begin your 14-day free trial. Choose Yes to start it, or No to enter a license key instead. (If you decline but don't enter a key, the trial starts anyway.)
• While trialing: the title bar shows Trial (N days remaining), and a small watermark appears on saved video overlays.
• When the trial expires: you'll be prompted to enter a license key; without a valid key the app will close.

Activating a license

1. Open the License Activation dialog (it appears automatically, or via the prompt at startup).
2. Paste your license key into the Enter License Key box.
3. Click Activate. On success you'll see "Licensed to: <your name>" and the green ✓ Licensed status.

A license may be perpetual (no expiry) or time-limited (shows days remaining). You can Deactivate a license on one machine to move it to another. The license is saved as license.key in the program folder.

6. First launch & the Setup Wizard

The very first time you run BirdWatchAI, a splash screen loads the AI model and camera system, then the Setup Wizard appears to walk you through the essentials in five steps. You can press Skip on most steps and configure things later in Settings, and you can re-run the wizard any time from the Help menu.

Step 1 — Welcome

Lists what you'll need: an RTSP camera (Tapo, Wyze, Amcrest, etc.), the camera on your Wi-Fi, the camera maker's phone app for initial setup, and optionally an email address and your zip code.

Step 2 — Camera Setup

Pick your camera type from the dropdown (Tapo, Wyze, Amcrest, Reolink, Hikvision, or Other). Tabbed instructions adapt to your choice. Then fill in:

• Camera IP Address — use the How to Find IP button if unsure.
• RTSP Port — default 554.
• RTSP Username / RTSP Password — the camera account credentials (for Tapo this is separate from your TP-Link login — see Section 8).

Click Build URL to assemble the RTSP address, then 🔗 Test Connection to verify. A successful test shows the camera resolution. There's also a 📖 Full TAPO Guide button.

Step 3 — Notifications

Optionally enable email (with a handy Use Gmail Defaults button) and/or Pushover mobile push. You can skip this and set it up later.

Step 4 — Location

Enter your ZIP Code and click Look Up. Your location powers temperature display, regional rarity ratings, and accurate daylight hours.

Step 5 — Complete

A summary shows the status of Camera, Email, Push, and Location. Click Finish ✓ to save. Then, in the main window: Connect to Camera → Start Monitoring.

7. Understanding RTSP cameras

RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) is a standard way for cameras to send live video over a network. BirdWatchAI connects to your camera using an RTSP address that looks like this:

rtsp://username:password@camera_ip:port/stream_path

For example: rtsp://birduser:secret123@192.168.1.105/stream1. The pieces are:

• username:password — your camera's RTSP/"camera account" credentials.
• camera_ip — the camera's address on your network (e.g. 192.168.1.105).
• port — almost always 554 (can be omitted when it's 554).
• stream_path — brand-specific (e.g. /stream1 for Tapo).

Common stream paths by brand:

8. TP-Link Tapo step-by-step

Tapo cameras (C100/C110/C120/C200/C210/C310/C320WS/C500/C510W/C520WS, etc.) are popular, affordable, and well supported. The most important thing to understand is the Camera Account.

Create the Camera Account (for RTSP)

1. Open the Tapo app and tap your camera to open Live View.
2. Tap the ⚙️ gear (top-right) → Advanced Settings → Camera Account.
3. Tap Understand and Agree to Use.
4. Set a username (6–32 characters) and password (6–32 characters), then Save. Use these in BirdWatchAI's RTSP fields.

Find the camera's IP address

Tapo app → ⚙️ gear → Device Info → IP Address (e.g. 192.168.1.105). Alternatively, check your router's connected-devices list for a name like TAPO_C120_XXXX.

How to reserve the camera's IP (the general idea)

Every router brand has a slightly different menu, but the concept is identical everywhere:

1. Open your router's admin page in a web browser (commonly 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 — check the label on your router) and sign in.
2. Find the DHCP settings. Depending on the brand this lives under a menu such as LAN, Network, DHCP Server, Address Reservation, or Connected Devices / Client List.
3. Locate your camera in the list of connected devices (look for a name like TAPO_C120_XXXX, or match it by its MAC address — a unique hardware ID printed on the camera and shown in the camera's app under Device Info).
4. Choose Reserve / Bind / Add Static Lease for that device, and either keep its current IP or assign one you'll remember.
5. Save/apply. Then reboot the camera (or wait for its lease to renew) so it picks up the reserved address.
6. Use that same reserved IP in BirdWatchAI's Camera IP Address field.

Streams & quality

• /stream1 — 2K (e.g. 2304×1296). Best for identification. Set Tapo app → Camera Settings → Video Quality → Best Quality.
• /stream2 — 640×360. Low bandwidth; BirdWatchAI uses this automatically as the lightweight "analysis stream" for software motion detection.

Quick reference

Optional: remote camera reboot

BirdWatchAI can power-cycle a frozen Tapo camera automatically (or via the tray menu's 🔄 Restart Camera). This feature needs your TP-Link cloud account email and password, entered in Settings → Camera (RTSP) → TAPO Camera Reboot. These are your cloud-login credentials, distinct from the RTSP camera account.

9. Other camera brands

Any RTSP camera works. General tips:

• Enable RTSP in the camera's app/web interface if it's off by default.
• Wyze cameras need custom RTSP firmware (e.g. Dafang Hacks / wz_mini_hacks); the stream path is then /live.
• Use port 554 unless your camera documents otherwise.
• Find the IP via the camera app, your router, or a network scanner such as Fing or Advanced IP Scanner.
• Use the correct stream path for your brand (table in Section 7).

10. Connecting & testing the camera

In Settings → Camera (RTSP) you can either type your IP, port, username, and password and click Build RTSP URL, or paste a complete RTSP URL directly into the RTSP URL box. Then click Test Connection to confirm video. Save, close settings, and on the main window press Connect to Camera.

When connected:

• The live video appears in the left panel with status overlays (location, status, temperature, clock, logo).
• The Connect to Camera button changes to Disconnect.
• Start Monitoring becomes available.

Staying connected

• Auto-reconnect (on by default) retries with increasing delays if the stream drops.
• After repeated failures, if Tapo cloud credentials are set, the app will reboot the camera and reconnect.
• Periodic reconnect (optional) can force a fresh connection every N minutes to clear latency drift.
• If you enable NTFY system alerts, you'll get a push when the camera disconnects and again when it reconnects.

11. Camera placement tips

• Aim the camera at the feeder from 3–10 feet for a clear, bird-filling frame — distant birds are harder to identify.
• Avoid pointing into direct sun; backlighting silhouettes the birds.
• Minimize swaying branches and busy backgrounds in the frame to reduce false motion.
• Strong Wi-Fi at the camera = fewer dropouts and choppy video.
• Position so the bird is well-lit and roughly centered where it lands/feeds.

12. The main window — a tour

The window opens at 1400×800 by default. From top to bottom:

Top status bar

A single bold status line, e.g. Status: 🔍 Monitoring (Detections: 12). It changes to reflect the current state — Connecting, Night Mode (outside daylight hours), Paused, Reconnecting — and always appends the current motion percentage.

The button bar

A row of action buttons (it wraps to fit the window):

The content area

Split into resizable panels:

• Left — Live Video: the camera feed, with overlay panels showing your location and temperature (top) and the BirdWatchAI logo plus a live clock (bottom). Before connecting, it reads "No Camera Connected."
• Right — Bird Detections: a filter row, the detections table, and below it a preview of the selected detection's captured image plus a matching species photo from Wikipedia.

Bottom status bar

A row of view toggles lets you show/hide panels (these persist between sessions): Live Video, Detections Table, Captured Image Preview, Species Image, Debug Log. Two indicators show camera status (Connected/Disconnected) and monitoring status (Idle / Monitoring).

↑ Back to top

13. The system tray

BirdWatchAI lives in your Windows system tray (the bird icon near the clock).

• Double-click the tray icon to restore the window.
• Hover to see a tooltip: camera name, monitoring status, camera status, and detections today.
• Right-click for a menu: Show/Hide Window, Start/Stop Monitoring, Settings, 🔄 Restart Camera, and Exit.
• When the window is minimized, a detection shows a tray balloon: "🐦 <Bird> Detected!" with confidence and time.

14. Monitoring: start & stop

After connecting, click Start Monitoring. The button becomes Stop Monitoring and the status shows 🔍 Monitoring. The app now watches for motion every couple of seconds and processes detections automatically. Click Stop Monitoring to pause (the status shows ⏸️ Paused; motion percentage keeps displaying so you can tune thresholds).

Several automatic guardrails govern monitoring:

• Daylight only (default on, 7:00–20:00): outside these hours the status shows 🌙 Night Mode and detections pause. Adjust or disable in Settings → Monitoring.
• Cooldown (default 3 s): minimum gap between detections, to avoid bursts.
• Daily limit (default 500): caps snapshots per day.
• Auto-connect on startup (optional): the app can connect and begin monitoring by itself when launched.

15. How a detection happens

Understanding the pipeline helps you tune the app and trust its results. When monitoring:

1. Motion is detected — either by the camera's own hardware via ONVIF (recommended for Tapo; lower CPU) or by the app comparing recent low-resolution frames (software motion). If the changed-pixels percentage exceeds the Motion Threshold, a detection begins.
2. A high-resolution snapshot is captured immediately, and video recording starts (using a rolling pre-buffer so the clip includes the seconds before the trigger).
3. Best-frame extraction (on by default) examines multiple frames from the clip and picks the clearest one — important when the bird arrives a moment after the motion trigger.
4. Object detection (YOLOv8) finds the bird, crops to it, and filters out non-bird motion like squirrels or branches (those are silently ignored — no detection row).
5. Species identification runs the AI classifier and returns the best guess with a confidence percentage.
6. Enrichment: current temperature and regional rarity are looked up (if your location is set).
7. Threshold check against Minimum Confidence Threshold:
   • Above threshold → the snapshot is saved with an on-image overlay (time, species, confidence, temp, location, camera name), the video is kept and labeled, the detection is added to the history and statistics, and notifications fire.
   • Below threshold → discarded by default. If you enable Save detections below confidence threshold, these go to a ForReview folder and appear with a ⚠️ "uncertain" marker for you to confirm or correct.

16. The detection history list

The right-hand Bird Detections table is your searchable journal. The header shows how many rows match your filters out of the total in the database. Columns:

Click any column header to sort. Click a row to load its captured image (left) and a matching Wikipedia species photo with a "View on Wikipedia" link (right). Double-click a row to open it in the slideshow viewer.

Filtering

The filter row above the grid lets you narrow by Species (partial text), a From/To date range, a confidence range, rarity, and toggles for ⭐ favorites only and ⚠️ uncertain only. Use Clear to reset, 🔄 to refresh from the database, and ▶️ to launch a slideshow of the filtered results.

Right-click actions

Right-click one or more rows for a rich context menu:

• Open Image, 🎬 Play Video, and folder shortcuts (📁 Videos, 🖼️ Images).
• Google Image Search / Reverse Image Search to verify an ID.
• ⭐ Toggle Favorite.
• ✅ Confirm Detection — accept an uncertain one (moves it out of ForReview).
• Correct Identification… — fix a wrong species; the correction is saved (and helps future training) and re-rated for rarity.
• 🌐 Push to Community… — manually share this sighting.
• 🖼️ Send to Photo Frame.
• Delete Selected Row(s) (also removes the photo/video files).
• 📤 Export Detections → CSV, JSON, or a chosen date range.

17. Bird identification & AI models

Identification runs entirely on your PC using local neural-network models (ONNX format). Nothing is uploaded for identification. In Settings → Bird Identification you choose the AI Model:

Supporting features:

• Minimum Confidence Threshold — only detections above this percentage are recorded. A new install defaults to 35%. Raise it to reduce false IDs; lower it to catch more (and consider enabling the ForReview workflow).
• Object detector (YOLOv8) — crops to the bird and filters non-bird motion before classification.
• Rarity — when your location is set, each species is rated against regional/seasonal eBird data.
• Test Mode — generates fake random detections so you can test notifications and the UI without a live bird. Turn this off for real monitoring.

BirdWatchAI can alert you through five channels, each with its own Test button so you can confirm it works before relying on it. Every alert includes the labeled snapshot plus species statistics and rarity. All channels are off by default — enable the ones you want.

18. Email notifications

In Settings → Email Notifications:

1. Tick Enable email notifications.
2. Set the SMTP Server and Port (Gmail: smtp.gmail.com / 587), keep Enable SSL/TLS on.
3. Enter your sending Email Address and Password.
4. Enter one or more Recipient Email(s) (comma-separated).
5. Click Send Test Email to verify.

Emails are rich HTML with the snapshot, species, confidence, time, temperature, rarity, and running statistics — plus a celebration when you spot a species for the first time.

19. Pushover (mobile push)

Pushover delivers instant push notifications (with the photo) to your phone, tablet, or desktop. It's a low-cost one-time purchase after a free trial.

1. Create an account at pushover.net and install the app.
2. Create an application at pushover.net/apps/build.
3. In Settings → Pushover, enable it and paste your Application API Token and User Key.
4. Click 📱 Send Test Notification.

20. NTFY & Windows notifications

NTFY is a free, open-source push service that needs no account.

1. Install the ntfy app on your phone.
2. In Settings → NTFY & Windows, enable NTFY, keep the server https://ntfy.sh, and choose a unique topic name (e.g. birdwatch-myfeeder-12345).
3. Subscribe to the same topic in the ntfy app.
4. Click 📱 Send Test Notification.

The same tab includes:

• 📡 Camera System Alerts — get a push when the camera disconnects/reconnects (uses a separate topic).
• Windows Desktop Notifications — native Windows 10/11 toast pop-ups; fast and local.

21. Digital photo frame

BirdWatchAI can push snapshots (and optionally videos) straight to a digital photo frame, turning it into a live bird gallery. In Settings → Photo Frame:

• Enable it, name the frame, and choose whether to send snapshots, videos, and whether to auto-send on every detection.
• Pick a delivery method: FTP Upload (host, port, credentials, remote path, optional FTPS) or Email to Frame (the frame's email address + SMTP details).
• Click 🖼️ Test Photo Frame.

You can also send any single detection on demand via the history right-click menu → 🖼️ Send to Photo Frame.

22. Summary reports

Reports roll up your activity into a tidy digest with statistics, charts, and snapshots.

On demand

Click 📧 Report on the main window and pick Daily, Weekly, or Monthly, then Generate & Send.

Scheduled

In Settings → Summary Reports, enable any of:

• Daily at a chosen time (default 11:30 PM).
• Weekly on a chosen weekday.
• Monthly on a chosen day (1–28).

Set the recipient email(s) and the Delivery Method (Email only, Pushover only, or Both). Email reports include total detections, unique species, the most common visitor, peak activity hour, a 24-hour activity chart, a species breakdown, and up to 20 snapshots. Reports are skipped automatically when there were no detections in the period.

23. Video recording

By default BirdWatchAI records a short clip for each detection. Key behaviors:

• Duration — about 12 seconds after the trigger (configurable 5–120 s).
• Pre-buffer — a rolling buffer captures ~3 seconds before the trigger, so clips start before the bird arrives.
• Overlay — clips are labeled with the logo, timestamp, species, confidence, temperature, and location.
• Clips are saved next to snapshots as <timestamp>_<Species>.mp4.

The 🎥 Test Recording button records a short test clip and analyzes it (FPS, resolution, codec) so you can validate your stream's health.

24. Video summaries (highlight reels)

Click 🎬 Video Summary to stitch your clips into a polished highlight reel. In the dialog you can:

• Choose a range — Today / Yesterday / Last Week / Custom — or hand-pick specific clips.
• Add an intro title card (branding, date range, clip/species counts).
• Add background music with a fade-out (drop tracks into the Data\Music folder or browse for one).
• Enable intelligent highlight extraction to include only the high-confidence moments.
• Apply a Ken Burns pan/zoom effect to snapshots and cap per-clip duration.

You can also schedule a daily summary (Settings → Video Summary) to be generated automatically at a set time and delivered by email/Pushover/NTFY.

25. Video maintenance

Over time, clips accumulate trailing "dead" footage after the bird leaves. The 🔧 Video Maint. tool scans your videos, finds the last frame containing a bird, estimates how much space you'd save by trimming, and can trim selected or all videos (optionally replacing the originals). It shows a log, a progress bar, and a "View Video" button.

26. The slideshow viewer

Launch the slideshow by double-clicking a detection, clicking the filter row's ▶️, or via the right-click menu. It's a full media viewer for your bird photos and videos with: previous/play-pause/next, fullscreen, shuffle, loop, frame-step, speed control, a media-type filter (All / Photos / Videos), a Ken Burns effect on photos, an info overlay (species/time), and keyboard control.

27. Test Image analysis

The 🖼️ Test Image tool lets you run identification on any image file — great for testing the AI or identifying a photo you took elsewhere. Pick an image, choose the model (Bird Model 965 or SpeciesNet 2,498), and see the ranked predictions with an embedded Google Image Search pane to help verify.

28. Statistics dashboard

The 📊 Statistics window analyzes your entire detection history (not just what's visible in the grid). A summary panel shows total detections, unique species, most common species, date range, rare species, and your daily streak. Tabs include:

• Species — per-species table and image gallery.
• Time Analysis & Activity Heatmap — when birds visit.
• Rarity, Confidence, Temperature — distributions.
• Trends & Comparisons — change over time.
• Life List — first sightings, species not seen recently, and low-confidence IDs.

Use Export to save the data.

29. Telemetry viewer

The 📈 Telemetry window plots the behind-the-scenes signals recorded on every monitoring cycle: motion %, temperature, your motion threshold and confidence threshold, and detection markers. With date-range pickers, a Live mode, series toggles, and zoom/pan, it's the best tool for tuning thresholds — e.g. seeing how high motion spikes during real bird visits versus background sway, so you can set the Motion Threshold just below the real visits.

30. Achievements & badges

BirdWatchAI gamifies your bird-watching with ~140 badges across 10 categories and 10 ranks. Open 🏆 Badges to see your current rank, points, badge count, and progress to the next rank.

Badge categories include Detection Milestones, Species Collection, Daily Activity, Streaks & Consistency, Weather Warrior, Rarity Hunter, Species Families, Media Milestones, Special Achievements, and Dedication & Loyalty. Ranks climb from 🐣 Novice Watcher through 🪶 Bird Enthusiast, 🦅 Avid Birder, 👑 Legendary Watcher, all the way to 💎 Grand Master. Pop-ups celebrate new badges and rank-ups, and badges are re-checked as your history grows or changes.

31. Every settings tab explained

Open the dialog with ⚙ Settings. It has twelve tabs; click Save to apply or Cancel to discard. Sensitive fields (all passwords and API keys) are encrypted on disk. The default values below are what a fresh install uses.

Camera (RTSP)

Bird Identification

Email Notifications

Enable/SMTP server/port/SSL, email address & password, recipient(s), from-name, and a Send Test Email button. Off by default. (See Section 18.)

Summary Reports

Daily / Weekly / Monthly toggles with schedules, recipient list, and delivery method (Email / Pushover / Both). All off by default. (See Section 22.)

Pushover

Enable, Application API Token, User Key, and a test button. (See Section 19.)

NTFY & Windows

NTFY enable/server/topic/auth-token, camera system-alert topic, and Windows desktop notifications, each with a test button. (See Section 20.)

Monitoring

Advanced

Debug Logging

Per-component log levels (None / Low / Medium / High) for Bird Identification, Camera, Motion Detection, Monitoring Loop, and MainForm/UI, plus log-file rotation settings (max size, max files, folder). All default to None. (See Section 44.)

Photo Frame

Enable, frame name, what to send, FTP or Email delivery, and a test button. Off by default. (See Section 21.)

Community

Enable sharing, auto vs. manual push, Share Level (1–4), your read-only Feeder Display Name and anonymous Device Key, plus an admin section. (See Section 33.)

Video Summary

Intro card, highlight extraction, compression, per-clip duration, Ken Burns, credits video, background music, email attachment, and the scheduled daily-summary time. (See Section 24.)

32. What the community is

The BirdWatchAI community is a free, worldwide live feed of bird sightings shared by BirdWatchAI users, hosted at www.birdwatchai.com. There are two halves:

• In the app — an optional, opt-in feature that publishes your detections to the community (you control exactly how much is shared).
• On the website — anyone can browse the live feed, an interactive map, photo galleries, statistics, and a directory of active feeders, and (with a free account) like, comment, follow feeders, and build a life list.

You can browse the website without any account. You only need to sign in to participate socially.

33. Sharing from the app & privacy

Sharing is controlled in Settings → Community. The most important control is the Share Level, which precisely governs what leaves your PC:

Other options on the tab:

• Enable Community Sharing — the master switch.
• Automatically push each detection — uncheck to share only manually (right-click a detection → 🌐 Push to Community…).
• When you correct or delete a detection locally, the change syncs to the community automatically.
• Your app periodically sends a heartbeat so the website can show your feeder as online/monitoring.

The 🛠️ Launch Community Admin button (with a service-role key) is for the site operator to moderate any feeder's data and is not needed for normal use.

34. The website & landing page

The home page at www.birdwatchai.com is both a showcase and a live community window. Notable sections:

• Live Detection Ticker — a scrolling banner of the most recent sightings.
• Detection Hotspots — a map of recent detections, with rare-bird hotspots highlighted.
• Live From the Community — a gallery of the latest sighting photos.
• On This Day Last Year and This Week's Highlights — fun retrospectives and KPIs (rarest bird, most active feeder, new species, etc.).
• Migration Pulse — the month's most-detected species.
• Community Feeders — a directory of the most active feeders.
• Pricing & Download, system requirements, FAQ, and a 🌙 dark-mode toggle.

The big 🔴 Live Community Feed link opens the full interactive community app (community.html).

35. Accounts & signing in

Creating a community account is free and passwordless:

1. On the community feed page, click Sign In.
2. Enter your email and click Send Magic Link — no password to remember.
3. Open the email and click the link; you'll be returned to the feed, signed in. Your session persists across visits.
4. Open Profile to set a Display Name and a short Bio.

Signing in unlocks likes, comments, following feeders, and your life list. (Moderators use a separate email-and-password login — see Section 42.)

36. Browsing: feed, map, gallery, stats, feeders

The community feed page offers a powerful filter bar (search by species/feeder/notes; filter by time period, species, rarity, feeder, and location/radius including 📍 "Near me"; sort by recent/most-liked/most-commented; show only ❤️ "My Likes"). A status bar provides auto-refresh, a sound chime for new detections, rare-bird browser notifications, and CSV export. There are five views:

• 📋 Feed — an infinite-scroll card grid. Each card shows the photo, species, rarity, time, location, temperature, and feeder, with buttons to add to your life list, follow the feeder, like, watch video, research the species, share a link, comment, or flag.
• 🗺️ Map — pins or a heat-map of detections, with an optional feeder layer (green = online, gray = offline).
• 🖼️ Gallery — species-grouped photo tiles with a full-screen slideshow (fade / slide / Ken Burns / blur transitions).
• 📊 Stats — sub-tabs for Life List, Activity, Calendar, Hotspots, Temperature, Leaderboard, Trend, Records, Pairs, Compare, and Likes.
• 🪺 Feeders — every registered feeder with its status, app version, location, and last heartbeat; a feeder is shown offline after ~10–15 minutes without a heartbeat.

A 🏆 Bird of the Day banner highlights today's rarest sighting, and new Very Rare detections trigger a celebratory confetti burst.

37. Social features

• ❤️ Likes — a single shared reaction; a "Liked by…" popover lists who liked it.
• 💬 Comments — threaded comments (with one level of replies); sign in to post or delete your own.
• ☆ Follow a Feeder — follow feeders you like, with an option to be notified of rare sightings.
• Life List — your personal list of species seen, with first-seen dates; share a read-only link to your list.
• Leaderboards — top feeders and most-seen species.
• Profiles — your display name and bio appear on your comments and likes.
• 🚩 Report — flag a detection (wrong ID, inappropriate, duplicate, spam, other) for moderators.

38. The Weekly Bird Digest

Sign up with your email in either newsletter box on the site to get the free Weekly Bird Digest, sent every Sunday morning. It includes the week's total detections, a rare sighting of the week, "first of the season" species, and a top-species chart. Every digest has a one-click unsubscribe link.

39. Installing the site as an app (PWA)

The community site is a Progressive Web App, so you can install it like a native app:

• Desktop (Chrome/Edge): click the install icon in the address bar.
• iPhone/iPad (Safari): Share → Add to Home Screen.
• Android (Chrome): menu → Install app.

Installed, it opens in its own window, loads faster, and shows an offline shell when you have no connection.

40. The community screensaver

A free companion Windows screensaver (downloadable from the site) turns your idle screens into a live community bird gallery — one independent slideshow per monitor, pulling fresh sightings every few minutes.

• Install with the included install.bat (no admin needed); it registers the screensaver and opens Windows Screen Saver Settings.
• Configure the transition effect, photo duration (3–30 s), photo order (random / most recent / most photographed / alphabetical), and whether to show species names and a progress bar.
• Move the mouse or press a key to exit, as with any screensaver.

41. The embeddable widget

You can embed a tiny live bird feed on your own website or blog using an iframe snippet (copy it from the site's "Embed Live Birds on Your Site" section). It supports parameters to filter to a specific feeder, limit how many detections show (max 20), and set a custom title, and it refreshes itself periodically.

42. Moderation

The community is kept tidy by moderators who log in with an email and password (separate from the passwordless member sign-in). Moderators can review the flag queue, browse and delete comments, edit a detection's species or rarity, and delete detections (removing the stored media too). Admins can additionally invite or remove other moderators. If you spot a problem, use the 🚩 button on any detection.

43. File & folder locations

All your data lives in a Data folder beside the program (e.g. C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\BirdWatch AI\Data\):

44. Troubleshooting

45. Frequently asked questions

Are my bird photos sent to the cloud?

No — identification is fully local. Images only leave your PC if you turn on Community Sharing at Level 3 or higher, which is opt-in and off unless you enable it.

Do I need internet?

Not for monitoring or identification. Internet is only used for weather, optional community sharing, optional notifications, and update checks.

Can I watch more than one feeder?

Yes — install the app into separate folders, one per camera; each runs independently.

Does it run at night?

By default it pauses outside 7:00–20:00 ("daylight only"). You can change the hours or disable the limit in Settings → Monitoring.

Why are some detections marked ⚠️?

Those are below your confidence threshold and were kept for review (only if you enabled "Save detections below confidence threshold"). Confirm or correct them from the right-click menu.

Will sharing reveal my home address?

Only at Share Level 2+ do you share a zip code or GPS, and your identity stays anonymous (random Device Key). Use Level 1, or 2 with just a zip code, if you prefer more privacy.

46. Keyboard shortcuts

Desktop app

• Delete — delete the selected detection row(s).
• Slideshow: arrow keys navigate, Space play/pause, F fullscreen.

Community website feed

• j / k — next / previous card.
• / — focus the search box.
• f — toggle "My Likes".
• r — refresh.
• 1–4 — switch Feed / Map / Gallery / Stats.
• Esc — close overlays.

47. Glossary

48. Support, pricing & credits

Pricing

• Free Trial — 14 days, full features, no credit card.
• Full License — a one-time purchase (no subscription).
• "The Full Nest" kits — optional bundled camera kits (indoor/outdoor) available from the website.

Getting help

• In-app: ❓ Help button, and re-run the Setup Wizard from the Help menu.
• Online: www.birdwatchai.com — downloads, FAQ, setup guides, and the community.
• Updates: the app checks for new versions on startup and offers to download them.

Credits

BirdWatchAI is created by Joe Barraco / Bird Brain Solutions LLC. It builds on open technologies including ONNX Runtime (local AI), FFmpeg (video), LibVLC (streaming), OpenStreetMap & Leaflet (maps), Open-Meteo (weather), eBird-derived data (rarity), Wikipedia (species photos), and Supabase (community backend). Thank you for watching the birds with us.

🐦  BirdWatchAI — Complete User Manual  ·  "Never Miss a Feathered Friend"  ·  www.birdwatchai.com
© Bird Brain Solutions LLC. This manual covers the desktop application (v2.1) and the community platform.