Peanut Envy

Call me a Birdcam Buffoon, but I think there's some user error afoot here. Yesterday was a busy day, but not too busy for me to be messing endlessly with my new Birdcam. Before I go on (and forget what I'm talking about), several of you have asked me about the Birdcam. Everything you'll want to know about it can be found right here. So here's what's been going on in Birdcam land:

As you know, my first outing with it ended with 78 images of which only 3 contained actual birds. No problem there. It was a windy day, and the wind was obviously setting off the motion sensor. You can see my first three images right here. Since I had so many shots without birds, I decided to turn down the sensitivity. That turned out to be a big mistake because I was disappointed when I checked it yesterday morning and found not a single shot.

Plan B had me switching out the suet cake for the peanut feeder. The peanut feeder gets by far and away the most activity. The blue jays will empty it in less than an hour. So here is yesterday's catch:

Pay attention to the time stamps in these images. There were 30 in all, but I'll only show you the ones I need to make my point. The bird in the image above is a scrub jay. The camera is set to fire four images for each motion, and to wait one minute between detected movements (I hope that makes sense). So then, in the image below, you see the same bird.

Below is the next image that features a bird. Notice the time stamp, but then, notice the level of the peanuts.

Clearly birds have been eating the peanuts, but they were not caught in the act. The next image on the "roll" is shown below. Notice the level of the peanuts and the time stamp. A full hour has gone by. The level of the peanuts is down, but there are no images of birds.

Then here's the next one, about 25 minutes later.

And the next one 15 minutes later. Notice the level of the peanuts.

Here's a bird at the same time.

Then in the next image, 17 minutes later, all the peanuts are gone! And no bird photos!

Okay, clearly something is rotten in Denmark. (And may I just say that I'm feeling pretty CSI about this whole thing.)

So I gave this some thought last night and decided to read the instructions again this morning. What I think is happening is that I have a Wifi memory card loaded into the camera, and that the camera is shutting down on taking images to allow them to upload to whatever computer it thinks it's attached to...which is no computer because I've just been removing the card and bringing it inside to upload. So this morning I brought the whole shebang inside and set the sensitivity as high as it would go, switched out the memory card for a non Wifi card. I could have switched off the Wifi function, but I wanted to give it a bigger memory card for the increased sensitivity. 

In the meantime, I took off the pictures captured since yesterday. Obviously, I switched out the empty peanut feeder for the suet cake again. The blue jays will eat anything. Here's what I got:

The next one is a Steller's jay.

I refilled the peanut feeder and with the camera set to its highest sensitivity, I should get lots of pictures. The Wifi won't get in the way any more, and so I'm hoping I have the magic formula nailed down. I'll know better later on today. Incidentally, the jays were squawking at me wanting me to fill up the peanuts. They are a gang of thugs if you ask me.

Thanks to everyone who expressed their concern about Gracie's bad day yesterday. She came through her teeth cleaning with flying calico colors. We were able to pick her up early, and she didn't seem the slightest bit groggy from the anesthesia. This morning she was very perky, running all around, and generally feeling good. And her teeth are positively gleaming!

I have some housework to do this morning, and then I'm going to get going quilting the White Trees quilt. I think I have some good ideas about how to quilt it (always the most difficult part of the project...coming up with ideas), and so I'm itching to get going on it.

I did finish a quilt top this morning...a rather unconventional one. It's the quilt top my quilted snowladies are snuggling under.

Obviously, I still have a ways to go to finish all of the embroidery, but the quilts in these take the most time. Once I have the quilt finished, the rest of it goes like lightning...if by "lightning" you are referring to molasses.

Updated to say that I'm linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching.

So off I go. It's a stay-at-home day...the very best kind of day.

Oh yes, and I almost forgot...power to the people! It's over! And sanity reigns supreme once again. (For now.)