Let the outside in.

Featherframe, a walnut frame on its kickstand, showing the Cedar Waxwing from The Birds of America

A picture frame that shows the birds singing near your home, each in its hand-painted portrait from the 1800s.

Hand-assembled in New England.
Sets up from your phone. No extra hardware needed.
Works almost anywhere: 7,000+ public bird stations worldwide.
From $349. No subscription, no camera, no surprises.

E-paper

Made of ink, like a print.

Featherframe uses e-paper, the same kind of screen as an e-reader. The picture is made of pigment and gives off no light. By day it looks like a print. At night it goes dark with the room.

The 10.3-inch frame — 10.3-inch · B&W0.0 s

The 13.3-inch frame — 13.3-inch · Color0.0 s

The picture stays with the power off. The screen uses power only to change it.
To change the picture, the screen flashes. B&W takes about a second. Color takes about fifteen seconds, and flickers as the inks settle.

The art

More than 1,300 species, each painted by hand.

In the 1800s, a handful of naturalists set out to paint every bird they could find, and to print each picture by hand. John James Audubon painted the birds of America; John Gould, working in London, painted Europe, Australia, Asia and Great Britain. In 2010, a single copy of The Birds of America sold for $11.5 million.

Featherframe shows one illustration at a time, with the species’ name, its Latin name and the book’s own caption set beneath it.

From the collection

Wild TurkeyMeleagris gallopavoAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

European RobinErithacus rubeculaGould’s *The Birds of Europe*

Great Horned OwlBubo virginianusAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

Rainbow LorikeetTrichoglossus moluccanusGould’s *The Birds of Australia*

Cedar WaxwingBombycilla cedrorumAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

Common KingfisherAlcedo atthisGould’s *The Birds of Europe*

Green-breasted MangoAnthracothorax prevostiiAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

Laughing KookaburraDacelo novaeguineaeGould’s *The Birds of Australia*

Tufted TitmouseBaeolophus bicolorAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

European GoldfinchCarduelis carduelisGould’s *The Birds of Europe*

Northern Saw-whet OwlAegolius acadicusAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

Carolina WrenThryothorus ludovicianusAudubon’s *The Birds of America*

How it works

Meet the birds you only hear.

Most birds nearby are heard long before they are seen. Featherframe puts a name and a portrait to each call, so over a season you come to know who lives around you.

A spectrogram of a Northern Cardinal’s song — Video by Courtney Celley, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Choose a BirdWeather station near you, or anywhere in the world, and the frame shows each species it hears. You need nothing else.

To see the birds in your own yard, add a BirdNET detector: free software from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Chemnitz University of Technology that identifies birds by their songs.

Compatible withBirdNET BirdWeather

The frame showing the Northern Cardinal from The Birds of America — Seconds later, the frame shows it.About fifteen seconds later, the frame shows it.

The collage

Each night, a portrait of the day.

During quiet hours, your frame lays out every species heard that day in the original illustrations, numbered and labeled like a page in an old natural history book.

With AI illustration¹ turned on, the day’s species are painted together in one scene that changes with the season and the weather. The four below were made this way.

Spring7 April 2026
Summer1 June 2026
Fall23 September 2026
Winter16 February 2026

✦ Each collage was generated by AI from the species one station heard that day.

¹ Off by default. Needs your own image-generation API key (OpenAI, Gemini or Replicate), billed by that provider, not by Wells Workshop. Every generated picture is marked ✦. Collages don’t need it.

Technical details

Display: 10.3-inch, B&W: 1404 × 1872, sixteen shades of gray13.3-inch, Color: 1200 × 1600, six inks
Frame: Solid walnut, tempered glass
Size: 10.3-inch: an 8.5 × 11 in frame, 1.1 in deep13.3-inch: an 11 × 14 in frame, 1.1 in deepThe mat’s opening is slightly smaller than the display.
Power: USB-C
Connectivity: Wi-Fi
Detections: A BirdWeather station near you, or your own backyard BirdNET device
Software: Open source. See it on GitHub

Let the outside in.

A framed e-paper display with no subscription.

Featherframe on its kickstand, showing the Northern Cardinal from The Birds of America

FAQ

Does it make a good gift?

Yes. Nothing needs setting up before you wrap it. The person you give it to connects it to their Wi-Fi and chooses a detection source, all from their phone.

Do I need Wi-Fi?

Yes. The frame uses your Wi-Fi to receive each new illustration, and needs nothing else after setup.

How fast does the frame change?

B&W (10.3-inch): about a second.
Color (13.3-inch): about fifteen seconds, and it flickers as the inks settle. It suits the collage, which changes once a day.

Do I need my own BirdNET device?

No. The frame can use any public BirdWeather station, and there are stations across North America, Europe and beyond. If none is close, choose one near a place you love. To see the birds in your own yard, you can add a station of your own.

Does it work outside North America?

Yes. Gould’s books cover the birds of Europe, Asia and Australia, and the frame picks the book that illustrated your species.

What if a species near me was never illustrated?

The frame shows its name, set in the type of the old books. With AI illustration¹ turned on, it paints one in the books’ style instead, marked ✦.

Do the collages need AI?

No. Without AI, the day is laid out in the original illustrations, numbered and keyed like a page in an old natural history book. With AI illustration¹ turned on, the day’s species are painted together in one scene, marked ✦.

Is a subscription required?

No. The frame is a one-time purchase. It needs software to find each illustration; the Featherframe cloud does that, free with a frame, or you can run the same free, open-source software on your own BirdNET device.

Do I need an account?

Only for the Featherframe cloud, which is free with a frame. If you run the software yourself, you need no account at all.

Is my data private?

The frame has no camera and no microphone. Your account holds your frame’s settings and the species it has shown, and nothing is sold or shared.