It started off promising enough. Dozens of tiny, colorful birds were drawn to my garden just a few weeks after I mounted a $350 $269 Kiwibit Bird Feeder 2 Pro. “Looks like Great Tit!” read the first AI-driven alert sent to my phone. “Looks like Eurasian Blue Tit!” read another. I chuckled, still waiting for adulthood to kick in.

This went on for days. Hundreds of tiny tits came to snack on expensive sunflower seeds already husked. They’d skulk about in nearby trees before flittering in to grab a single seed to be safely enjoyed in the canopy above.

I took great delight in my new house guests. I admired them in crisp 4K HDR video recordings. I looked for unique markings in the hope of naming my new feral pets. I clicked deeper into the Kiwibit app to read about my visitors’ migration habits, where they nest, and what they like to eat. It was all going swell until he arrived.

“Looks like Common Wood Pigeon!” came the alert. All I saw was a battleship-gray blob obscuring the live camera feed. The winged rat was so fat and imposing that he blocked the lens. Ugh, no, go back to the tourists!

In mild panic, I triggered the feeder’s Nuisance Animal Alarm, a feature typically reserved for squirrels and the like. The pigeon tensed, looked around, but wasn’t deterred by the audible siren that was surely annoying my neighbors. Soon it went back to gorging on the haute cuisine purchased for more refined guests. It ate and ate and ate. For 15 minutes, it ate until I walked outside and shooed it away.

Thereafter, that pigeon, or pigeons (who can tell) moved in. They’d perch for 30 minutes or more, slamming their faces into the seed pile with the clumsy enthusiasm of a tween bobbing for apples. Mice arrived below to feast on the spoils. Admitting defeat, I dismounted the expensive bird feeder and shoved it into a closet.

I’m not mad at Kiwibit. The “Bird Feeder 2 Pro 4K AI Camera with Solar Panel (Lifetime AI Included)” I tested was a joy to use, until it wasn’t. That’s not Kiwibit’s fault.

If you’ve been tempted to buy a smart bird feeder, I’d suggest starting with something simple, inexpensive, and without AI instead of going all in on day one — you can’t return a used feeder just because it attracts pests.