Building a Solar-Powered Bird Station

Introduction

Tucson has more birds than you’d expect—practically overrun with them. Luckily, I love birds.

For months, I sat in the backyard with my iPhone using the Merlin Bird ID app to identify whatever I could spot. That could’ve been the end of it.

But I’m a software engineer, so naturally I turned it into a 24/7 system with observability and a web interface. Let’s dig in.

The Ingredients

Power

You’ll need some sort of solar and battery setup. In my case, I have an Enphase SolarI’ve been really happy with our Enphase system. We purchased it with our house and when I went to set up our account, Enphase informed me there’s a $200 setup fee. After writing to the CEO, I got a call from an executive VP who waived the fee. Pretty wild customer service. system that powers the whole houseYou don’t need to power your entire house. A small solar panel, inverter, and battery setup could handle just the compute, though you’d likely want a lower-power machine like a Raspberry Pi.. Tucson’s intense sunlight makes this an easy win.