Camouflage EZ BirdFeed review: a superb value, smart bird feeder camera that identifies your feathered friends

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Recommended (Image credit: © James Abbott) TechRadar Verdict If you’re someone who can only identify a handful of birds, the Camouflage EZ BirdFeed 1 is fantastic as a learning tool, thanks to its impressive bird-identification feature. Setup is easy using the included mounting kit, and although image quality isn’t the best, it’s good enough to enjoy a clear view of garden visitors. The solar panels work incredibly well to keep the internal battery charged, and appear to be able to keep the bird feeder running pretty much indefinitely.

You can’t download from the microSD card

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Jump To: One-minute review Price and availability Specs Design Performance Should you buy? How I tested Camouflage EZ BirdFeed 1: one-minute review

If you’ve ever struggled to identify the birds visiting your garden, or want a better view of your feathered visitors, the Camouflage EZ Birdfeed could be the exact gadget you’re looking for. This smart bird feeder not only captures photos and videos of visiting birds, it can also identify a whopping 11,000 species, which on its own makes it a candidate to be one of the best bird feeder cameras you can buy.

Thanks to the Bird Lover app, you can keep an eye on visitors live and via alerts, thanks to the feeder’s Wi-Fi connectivity. You can also connect to the bird feeder remotely when you’re away from home.

Set-up and installation of the EZ Birdfeed are simple. Beyond needing a drill and a screwdriver, you get everything you need to mount the bird feeder in your garden. You don’t even need to position the EZ Birdfeed close to your Wi-Fi router because running on the 2.4GHz band means it will work over reasonably long distances, and I was pleasantly surprised in this department.

Image quality produced by the EZ birdfeed isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s good enough, and on a par with other smart bird feeders. Most importantly, it will give you a clear and intimate view of feathered garden visitors from the comfort of your sofa, without running the risk of scaring the birds away.

The Camouflage EZ Birdfeed was announced during the summer of 2024, and the price of the birdfeeder has come down nicely since then to £139. I checked for availability of the birdfeeder in the United States and Australia, but could only find it on sale in Europe from multiple online retailers.

The EZ Birdfeed comes in a kit with everything you need to easily mount it in your garden, whether that’s to a tree, fence or shed. This is done using screws, but the mounting bracket does have two slits, so you could strap it to a tree rather than drilling it in with screws as the instructions suggest, although a strap isn’t included in the kit, so you’ll have to source one.

7.64 x 8.46 x 12.40 inches 194 x 215 x 315mm

The EZ Birdfeed follows a fairly common smart birdfeeder design with two solar panels on the roof section. The roof flips back to allow you to fill the bird food storage section. This then fills a tray area at the bottom with a perch in front where a water bottle is also attached. I was sceptical about the water bottle, but birds did use it to my surprise.

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The solar panels connect to the camera and keep the 5,200mAh battery charged. As part of the setup, you have to charge the battery, and during testing, it never dropped below 95% according to the Bird Lover app. The camera sits recessed into the food storage area, and can be tilted forward and backwards if necessary to adjust the camera angle.

(Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) Image 1 of 3 View Original

It’s a simple design with the motion sensor and lens being the most prominent features on the front. There’s also an indicator light, an Infrared LED, a microphone and an indicator light. On the top is an area covered by a kind of rubber bung where the microSD card slot can be found, the on/off switch, a sync/reset button and a charging port. On the back is just a mounting hole and a speaker.

(Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) Image 1 of 3 View Original

Build quality is good overall, and the EZ Birdfeed offers IP65 water resistance. The operating temperature is -5°F to 120°F / -20.5°C to 48.5°C, so it’s going to work in most conditions unless you live in a country that experiences extreme weather. In winter, depending on its location, you may need to top up the battery with a mains charge via USB, but you may not need to if the chosen location gets enough sunlight.

Camouflage suggests that you can attach the EZ Birdfeed to trees using the included wall plugs and screws, although it will work well attached to a fence post or even just a post, as long as the bird feeder is positioned at least 1.5 meters above the ground. Beyond this requirement, the only other thing you have to do is clean the birdfeeder occasionally and make sure that the food doesn’t get mouldy.

Like most, if not all, smart bird feeders, image quality is extremely limited with heavy JPEG processing visible in photos and a similar ‘waxy’ processing visible in videos. Resolution is extremely modest from the 2MP camera, with photos and videos recorded at 1080p/Full HD. When you’re viewing both live and captured video on your phone in the Bird Lover app it looks fine, but it’s limited if you want to print a photo.

The camera provides a wide 130-degree angle of view and detection angle. There is some barrel distortion visible, but this doesn’t negatively impact photos and videos when birds are sitting on the perch.

When positioned here, the birds are nice and sharp, but if they happen to hop into the food tray, they’re captured blurry due to the minimum focusing distance of the camera. The camera captures in color during the day and in black & white at night, where photos and videos are illuminated by six No Glow 940NM IR LEDs.

(Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) (Image credit: James Abbott) Image 1 of 4 View Original

My favourite feature of the EZ Birdfeeder is the bird identification, which uses AI to recognise 11,000 species. I didn’t manage to put that anywhere close to a full test since my garden has been taken over by great tits and blue tits, but I love the fact that you can click on the bird identification button and be taken to a Wiki page for the bird that has been identified. This is a fantastic feature for newcomers to birdwatching and more experienced twitchers when a rarer bird is captured.

One aspect of the EZ Birdfeed that I’m not a fan of is that all photos and videos can only be accessed through the app on your phone. You cannot remove the microSD card from the camera and access these files on your computer. I found this out the hard way after removing the microSD card when the review unit was sent back, as I intended to download everything, only to discover this wasn’t possible.

I had fortunately sent some photos and videos to friends, so they had been saved to my phone. Once the EZ Birdfeed is removed from your WiFi network, you can no longer access the photos and videos on the microSD card. This ultimately means that when the EZ Birdfeed is capturing multiple visits from birds during the day, you have to laboriously scroll through the timeline for the day to find the video captures.

Aside from the frustrating aspect of the Bird Lover app, where you have to trawl through the timeline to find captures, the app is easy to use and does send notifications when birds are spotted. These alerts can become annoying when your phone is vibrating or beeping every couple of minutes throughout the day. It is, of course, useful when you want to be alerted.

A simpler way of accessing videos captured would be most welcome. Not to mention, the ability to access photos and videos directly from the microSD card to bulk download would be great. It seems that this sort of thing is a common issue with smart birdfeeders. Sure, app control is most often the most convenient option, but functionality and a simple file-saving system can’t be ignored

If you’d like to start bird watching the easy way, a smart bird feeder is a great option because it gives you a clear view of birds without needing binoculars or a spotting scope.

The Bid Lover app is free to use, so you don’t have to worry about an expensive monthly or annual subscription getting in the way.

With AI-powered identification of 11,000 bird species, this is a great bird feeder for beginners and more experienced bird watchers alike.

While this bird feeder is great for remote bird spotting and watching, backed up by photo and video capture, image quality won’t win any awards.

This may sound obvious, but some gardens receive few feathered visitors. This is often because they’re not bird-friendly and lack natural food sources.

You prefer bird watching with binoculars or a scope

If you prefer bird watching with binoculars or a scope, rather than on a phone screen, a traditional bird feeder might be a better option for you.

I tested the EZ Birdfeeder over the course of a couple of months in two different gardens, with the most effective being a city garden next to a park. The birdfeeder was connected to a dual-band WiFi network where the router was at the front of the house, and the birdfeeder was in the back garden, putting connectivity to the test. Testing took place during fall / early winter, and once birds in the area became aware of it, it received many visitors.

With nearly 30 years of photographic experience and 17 years working as a photography journalist, I’ve used many of the cameras and lenses that have been released in that time. As a working photographer, I aim to test cameras and lenses from a photographer’s point of view.

James Abbott James Abbott is a professional photographer and freelance photography journalist. He contributes articles about photography, cameras and drones to a wide range of magazines and websites where he applies a wealth of experience to testing the latest photographic tech. James is also the author of ‘The Digital Darkroom: The Definitive Guide to Photo Editing’.

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