Camera reboots twice daily, at 00:00 and 12:00 GMT – 60 seconds duration. Note that I said GMT – most readers are from the UK, so that means plus 1 hour in the Summer.
Apologies for any corrupted feeds – I’m trying to get to the bottom of it when it happens.
It looks like we’ve missed out this year (2023). We’ve had around four or five visitors, who have checked out the box during late March and April, but by now (late April) I think we’ve missed the boat and they will have gone elsewhere.
Last year, of course, we hit pay dirt the first time around. But this is nature. They’re obviously looking, but those who looked this year decided not to.
Que sera.
As I mentioned when I first published this, I am using a much better streaming host – Brownrice – whose service is excellent, covers the resolution of my camera without repeated buffering, and whose support staff are immediately available for any issues (bearing in mind the 7-hour time difference which, oddly enough, actually works for me).
I’ve just had to put another camera in the box. The first one was wi-fi, and after a lot of extra bits and pieces to be able to get a signal at the end of the garden, the bird who took up initial residence last year broke the antenna off. The second, which was hard wired, stopped working after last year’s sad events had played out, and the third stopped a few weeks ago. I’m using a different brand now, so let’s see how that goes. Right now, the only resident is a spider.
Last year, we had a roosting Great Tit. She turned out to be female, and in early Spring she built a nest. She then laid nine eggs over a ten-day period, and all of them hatched. She and the male bird fed them regularly and they grew and developed all their feathers. They must have only been a short way from fledging when both parents stopped coming. I incorrectly assumed they were trying to get them outside, but the chicks weren’t old enough.
One by one, they died. The last night was awful, as there were still five chicks jumping around, then as night fell they all settled down and just died.
My other CCTV cameras show that there are at least three cats which prowl our garden at night. One of them – which I think belongs to neighbours at the bottom of the garden – is a cute and friendly little black and white thing, but it regularly goes for birds in our garden. I’ve seen it after our resident Blackbird, which my mother virtually handfeeds, along with two Robins. Since our garden has a lot of trees and bushes and is well maintained, we attract (and have feeders for) wildlife.
I’d never hurt the cat, as I am a cat lover, but I want to deter it, because there’s a high probability it was responsible for the disappearance of the chicks’ parents last year. So I bought my mother a Spyra water gun and she is surprisingly good with it.