Birds at the bedside

VitalVisitors™ brings the benefits of bird encounters to people with limited access to the outdoors: at the window, through livestreams and through recordings. It's built so care staff can keep it running without a dedicated champion.

Many older adults in care are cut off from other people and from nature. That isolation feeds loneliness and depression, and lowers quality of life at the end of life.

Watch live Host station

Watercolor of a care-home window. A clear feeder is suction-mounted outside the glass with a cardinal and a chickadee at the seed tray, a titmouse flying in, a crystal throwing rainbows on the sill, and a tablet showing the cardinal up close.

Ecological Medicine for care settings

Birds are nearly everywhere, and almost everyone has a story about one. They show up unexpectedly, they come and go, and they spark curiosity and delight.

A review of 196 studies in Frontiers in Bird Science found that over 90% reported psychological or physiological benefits from human and bird encounters. Even recorded or livestreamed birdsong may help.

If the upkeep is simple enough for busy staff, a feeder at the window is the easiest way to bring living nature to the bedside.

Built for the people who keep care running

Our patent pending system brings together four pieces of hardware, designed around healthcare security, privacy and maintenance from the start.

Window feeder

A clear feeder suction-mounts outside the glass. The housing stays put while pre-sealed seed trays slide in and out, so a refill takes seconds.

Watercolor of a small white camera on a suction mount inside a window, with a thin cable running down to the sill and a feeder with a chickadee blurred outside.

Window camera

A small camera sits inside the glass at feeder height, pointed out at the birds, and streams to a bedside tablet or the room's TV. Nothing passes through the window.

Watercolor of a solar path light in mulch beside a young tree, with a Carolina wren singing toward it.

Nature light

A solar listening station identifies birds by song around the building and sends that soundscape indoors.

Indoor speaker

A small speaker on the sill or bedside table plays the live birdsong from outside. A knob sets the volume, and soft LEDs show its status at a glance.

Our goal this fall: A window in every state

This migration season we're shipping stations to volunteers across the country and in Puerto Rico. Each place lights up when its first feed goes live. To protect privacy, we show a randomly chosen station in each state rather than naming any facility.

Live now Coming online this fall

Or choose a place

Now watching

Watch the live feed

More states will appear here as their stations come online.

Get involved

A tablet on a care-home windowsill showing a cardinal up close, beside a mug of tea.

Research pilot sites

Senior living, hospice, hospitals, PACE programs, or your own window at home. Host a station for a season and help shape a tool that care staff can actually keep running: tell us what breaks, what works and which birds show up.

For the research pilot only. Emails go to the research team at Clemson University's Virtual Reality and Nature Lab (nature@clemson.edu).

Join the research pilot

A cardinal and a chickadee at a clear window feeder while a titmouse flies in.

Researchers

We're building the evidence on birds, nature and health in care. Let's design the next study together.

For the research pilot only. Emails go to the research team at Clemson University's Virtual Reality and Nature Lab (nature@clemson.edu).

Start a conversation

Purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans with a monarch butterfly.

Funders and partners

Help bring VitalVisitors to more care settings, from first installs to full rollouts.

Emails go to the VitalVisitors team at info@vitalvisitors4health.com.

Get in touch

Who's behind it

VitalVisitors™ was co-founded by Landon Pollack, co-chair of As1 at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and co-founder and executive director of UCLA Project ReConnect, and Matthew Browning, Chief Scientific Officer of the Ecological Medicine Society. Its goal is to ease loneliness and depression and improve quality of life for people who can't easily get outside.

"It is one of the few opportunities to bridge the indoor-outdoor world."Landon Pollack, co-founder

Watercolor field page of eight Southern birds: Carolina wren, northern cardinal, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, eastern bluebird, American goldfinch, house finch and mourning dove, among dogwood, beautyberry and coneflower.

The research

A research study funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and led by Matthew Browning and Olivia McAnirlin, co-directors of the Virtual Reality and Nature Lab at Clemson University, is testing bird feeders at healthcare facilities, particularly end of life and assisted living settings.