The New Bird Feeder

Our house adjoins a large stand of trees on land owned by the county Park Authority, and so we have lots of birds around ... the tree outside my study window usually has birds happily twittering away in it, birds of all sorts perch on our mailbox and on the markers in my garden, and I keep a colorful hummingbird feeder in the garden during the season to enjoy the visits of the energetic little birds. 

To help us better enjoy the local avifauna*, this past Christmas our daughter gifted us a high-tech, camera-equipped, solar-powered, WiFi-enabled bird feeder. The ordering and delivery of the bird feeder is a long story in and of itself, well-told by our daughter, but suffice it to say that a few weeks after Christmas, the space age bird feeder arrived.

Last week, Spring having arrived, I decided it was time to assemble and put up the new feeder. Those of you who know me well know that I am the least handy of men, and so I was somewhat daunted by the apparent complexity of the device and the stressful decision on how and where to hang it, but I gritted my teeth and got to work.

The actual assembly of the feeder itself was pleasantly simple - it consisted only of three parts: the feeder itself, the attached perch, and the camera, and the assembly instructions were clear and amply illustrated. I plugged the camera into a USB charger to juice up the battery and, when it was fully charged, I screwed it into its mount within the feeder. So far, so good.

The next step was to connect the feeder to our home network ... and that was where the trouble started. 

The instructions sternly warned me at every turn that the feeder would not work with a 5G network, only with a 2.4 GHz network. 

Huh? 

I know that we have a network. Signals radiate from a futuristic-looking device perched atop a bookshelf in my study and things talk to each other ... Agnes surfs with her PC, I with my beloved Mac, and our iPads and phones enjoy satisfyingly strong signal strength. But is it 2.4 GHz? Is it 5G? G-whiz? An electronic G-string? I had no idea and, not wanting to do harm to our expensive high-tech feeder, I decided to ask the question of our friendly Verizon help desk. There no longer being any humans around any more, I had to explain my query (several times) to the AI chatbot on Verizon's website ... which timed out before ever answering the question. 

Sigh.

So I gritted my teeth and just went ahead and followed the instructions on how connect to the network. This involved pressing the power button on the camera housing (check) ... waiting for the blue light to come on (check) ... then pressing the power button twice to make the blue light blink (check). Once the blue light began to blink and a three-tone signal to ring out, I was to hold up the QR code to the camera, which would then sacrifice a digital goat in cyberspace, thereby appeasing the gods and allowing the camera to link to our network.

QR code? What QR code?

There was a QR code printed on a card inside the delivery box, but it petulantly refused to do anything when exposed to the camera, which just continued to flash the blue light at me while broadcasting that loud three-tone signal that seemed to roughly translate as "wrong code, dumbass."

Another few minutes of frantic searching in the small print of the instructions yielded a URL that I was to type into my phone to connect to the website that would provide me with the appropriate QR code. I did this (no small feat with my single-finger typing on the minuscule iPhone keyboard), and finally got the right QR code, which gave the secret handshake to the camera, which finally - if grudgingly - connected to our network!

Success!!

By now, it was late in the day, and so I left the assembled feeder sitting on my desk, figuring I could do the outdoor mounting the next day.

Fast forward. Next day, 5:00AM.

Bilbo, carrying his first cup of coffee of the new day, walks into the study ... and the camera dutifully lights up and takes very nice, hi-res video of its first bird: an old buzzard in his underwear. 

%&$#*!

So now, the problem is: how on earth can I delete that video? I can find no instructions in the package or on the app. AARRGGHH!! So (having first turned the damn camera to face the wall) I send an e-mail to the bird network help desk ... and, after a few hours, they respond with the procedure, which I immediately execute.

Whew.

So now, I knew the camera worked, but I still had to mount the feeder and its accompanying solar panel, then connect the two. This required the purchase of a 4x4-inch post, which I cut to length and firmly mounted on the deck. The feeder included two convenient templates to help incompetent installers like yours truly drill the right holes in the right places and then - VOILA!!

Naturally, such an ultramodern, high-tech bird feeder can't use just any seed, so I dutifully filled it with "premium" birdseed.

And as of the time I write this, we have had exactly one bird visit the feeder** ... a beautiful cardinal which petulantly perched on the solar panel for a few minutes before flying away without even checking out my premium birdseed. Bastard.

So ...

That's the story of our wonderful, high-tech bird feeder. I'm told that the birds will eventually discover it and we will be able to enjoy the visits of our feathered friends. We will also "enjoy" the visits of the  squirrels and raccoons which abound in our area, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Have a good day. Enjoy your birdwatching, regardless of what sort of feeder you have.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

 

* A fancy way of saying "birds" when you want to show off your vocabulary.

** The manufacturer, having somehow learned of my distress, sent me an e-mail telling me that "It takes time for birds to discover and become accustomed to a new feeder. Depending on your location, this process can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 1 month. Once they do find it, they'll spread the word to others!" Sigh. I guess I'll use the waiting time to think about squirrel and raccoon mitigation strategies.