I have been delighted to see both redwing and fieldfare here at Gwyllt Hollow. They have been feeding on the hawthorn berries mainly and I have also filmed them coming down to my pool pond, to bathe. These thrushes migrate here for the winter. They take advantage of berry crops and fallen fruit, in particular.
With the berries nearly gone now, I wanted to see if I could attract them into the garden. There was a pretty good crop of apples here and I had collected many and laid them out on newspaper in my green house. I wanted to see if I could get some of these out somewhere in the garden, in a position that I could possible film them.
I searched around the garden and found a couple of branches that had some strong side branches, perfect for spearing apples onto! I cabled tied some together and screwed them onto the back of a log. I speared on a selection of apples and some blueberries that had been hiding at the back of the fridge. I also added a couple of fat balls as well.
I mounted a Birdsy cam onto a post in front. This camera will monitor the area and use AI to recognise that wildlife is present. It then records a clip and saves it to the cloud. I can then then check the footage on my app or on the PC, save the clip or share on social media.
I use these cameras, along with the Hikvisions, to record the wildlife here. The advantage of the Birdsy cam is that I can live stream it with the click of a button. It is harder with the Hivisions and I use an external company for these live streams.
It was not long before I had some visitors... attracted by the fat balls. I am feeling confident that I'll see a selection of visitors in the coming weeks and hopefully they will incliude the redwing and fieldfare.
Here are a couple of the first clips I captured. If this set-up works well, I will live stream it on my website in the coming days.