With Big Garden Birdwatch coming up, I wanted my feeders to be looking good and ready to attract as many visitors as possible. My Hub feeders over look the lane and I have had problems with the sun shining on the bank in the back, meaning the images on live stream appear in shadow. I wanted to swap the camera and feeder orientation around to create a dark background of ivy. This meant moving the post the camera was mounted on and creating a new hanging mount for the feeders.
I also took this opportunity to give my feeders a clean. One of my favourite feeders at the moment is an Apollo feeder from CJ Wildfoods. This feeder completely comes apart, meaning you can easily clean it thoroughly. I simply took the top and base off and removed all the ports. Submerging them all in a bowl of hot, soapy water, I gave them all a good clean. The tube is wide enough to easily clean with a bottle brush and I could also just get my hand inside to dry it with kitchen roll. It only took ten minutes to completely clean this feeder and get it looking like new again!
Once this was completed, I used the icatcher app on my phone to access my live streams. My cameras are all wired back to my office and into a piece of software called icatcher Console. I have the icatcher app and this means I can access any of my live cameras, from my phone, anywhere that I am… it is brill! It is particularly useful when setting up new cameras as I can check the view using my phone , rather than having to come inside to look on the monitor.
With a bit of fiddling around, I managed to position the feeders so that 5 different feeders were in view, giving maximum chances to attract and view a wide range of species.
I then set that camera to record, so I could monitor the visitors.
As part of the Bird ID Scheme I am developing, I want to provide a range of videos showing different species… this set up gave me the perfect chance to get some clips to start this off. Here are the ones I captured today….
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