I have been planning a new feeding station for outside my hub for a few weeks now. When my hub went up last summer, I had not originally planned to feed the birds there. It is over looking the lane and I had not had feeders there before. With the window on the hub looking out there, it seemed a good idea. These feeders have proven very popular so I wanted to create a better set up that would have scope for cameras, especially my new HD one. At the moment, I am not streaming using this one as it is on the new iCatcher set-up that I will switch to streaming from once I have upgraded my broadband. This will be in about a month or so I hope!
Today, we put in a new post and used an existing fence post to create a hanging frame for feeders. I also made a small ‘shelf’ that lines up with the hub window. This will act as a surface not only to catch seed, but also for the birds to perch on and feed. Hopefully this will look good on the cameras.
I have also bought two new feeders that caught my eye. The trouble with live streaming from feeders is that the birds often feed from the opposite side! When I saw these rectangular feeders, I thought they would be good as I could mount them side-on so you could see the birds feeding from both sides. These are a new range of feeders from ChapelWood and are made from recycled plastic. They dismantle completely for cleaning and this meant I was able to dismantle them to screw them onto my ‘shelf’ rather than hanging them.
I screwed a perch along the back and plan to put some more in tomorrow.
To get the new HD camera up there, meant running a new 50m Cat5 cable from my office all the way to the hub…. it took quite a while but will be worth it as the footage this camera will give is far superior to anything else I have! I have also mounted the current live stream one up there, but will need to play around with that tomorrow to get the angle right.
I’m sure the birds will soon be back down to investigate this new set-up. They were sitting up in the trees today, indignant that I have deprived them of their main feeding station for a day! This one is much better though… I’m sure they will agree!
