Ear / Listen locally.
Small outdoor stations record ecological sound at agreed locations and process it on site.
Still Habitat brings small, low-power computers into remote places for more responsive, affordable ecological monitoring. We design, install, and support Catbird, a wildlife listening system with local processing and a private app.
A quieter way to know a place.
A place to begin
Follow what changes around you.
You’re investing in the land. We shape monitoring around your goals, whether you’re managing pasture, restoring a creek, or protecting habitat. Beyond bird lists and total counts, we follow how the mix of detections changes across locations, seasons, and times of day. Comparing those patterns with grazing, planting, weather, and other field records helps investigate what changed and why.
How Catbird works
Listen across the land. See the results from anywhere.
Perch / Send a report.
Ears pass compact reports by long-range radio. One connected Perch brings them online and can carry supported remote tuning.
Catbird / Follow activity.
The private app connects detections with places and listening effort over time.
What makes Still Habitat different: We design and train bioacoustic models around local habitats and your monitoring needs. Focused models can use less processing and power, making smaller computers, batteries, and solar panels possible. Radio reports and supported remote tuning reduce SD card pickups beyond cellular coverage through one connected Perch.
See how it worksPrivacy
Listening to wildlife. Keeping speech out.
Raw audio stays on the Ears, on your property. Audio identified as human speech is deleted locally and excluded from analysis. Ecological detection reports go to your private Catbird app.
A few practical questions
Before a first week.
Does every listening point need internet?
No. Ears send compact reports by radio through a Perch. One Perch needs an internet connection, and we test routes on site.
How large a site can it cover?
For initial planning, estimate about 7 acres with 3 listening Ears, 12 acres with 5, or 24 acres with 10. These provisional figures scale an earlier five-station estimate, not verified detection coverage. These estimates assume open grassland; forests generally have a smaller listening range. Target sounds, weather, and overlap also affect what is heard. Radio reach is separate from listening area. See listening estimates and custom setups on How it works.
What happens in the California Listening Sample?
At a suitable site, we place one Ear for seven days, prepare a starter report, and review results with you. Suitability, access, and any separate travel costs are agreed first. See current planning costs.
A practical first step
Get started
A conservation partnership worth building.
We’re looking for a substantial pro bono project supporting endangered or vulnerable species, on land or in the water, anywhere in the world. We’d like to work alongside a conservation team to design, build, and test a monitoring system around a real need. If your team has local expertise and a project that could benefit from custom sensing or audio models, please reach out. We’ll agree on scope, equipment, and travel together.
Tell us about your conservation projectHear what’s happening on your land. Your first week is on us.
At suitable California sites in 2026, we install one Ear for seven days and give you a starter bioacoustic report. We review what it heard together and discuss where continued monitoring could help. There’s no commitment to continue. We confirm site access and any separate travel costs before scheduling.
Based in Berkeley, available for hands-on field work and travel by arrangement.
Email us at [email protected]