Bird royalty visited today!
A couple of Purple Finches! I only ever see these guys during migration times, and usually only for one or two days. This video starts with a female House Finch who is then joined by the Purples. If you look closely, you will notice differences between the species. Especially the male has some features that clearly distinguish him from his House Finch counterpart (dots instead of stripes on chest and belly, red on the wings, a pronounced darker bar on the face and a very active crest). I hope they stick around, I want photos too!
A group of Redwinged Blackbirds
is currently visiting while traveling to their winter quarters farther south, and I am loving the sight of these immature birds. Redwinged Blackbirds are a favorite to begin with but the immatures have all kinds of golden patterns all over their bodies, which looks really nice. The more streaky looking one is a female. Bonus is a Chickadee. There is quite a group of them around, and they are working the feeders and baths all day and also check out the nestbox occasionally. Some may be part of the family that was raising young there in the spring.
When I am talking
about lacking diversity, I am also talking about these guys who used to be regulars - Tufted Titmice. They are one of the cutest birds we got here, and they have made themselves so rare that every visit is an event to me now ❤️ It is so nice to see them coming back.
The desk calendar
has a fierce Redwinged Blackbird as cover photo because ot worked better with the proportions. Some of these guys are passing through right now too. The calendar is on a special Halloween sale from today until Friday, Nov. 1 for 15 % off. You can get it here. Have a wonderful day!
A little compilation
of visitors to the Birdfy 2 feeder from the last couple of weeks. I know many do not like the snow but I am being a bit selfish and really looking forward to ice and snow because I know it will bring in the birds. You can still get a discount for a Birdfy 2 using the code OSTDROSSEL and this link.
Variety is still low,
and the weather will warm up again this week, but the appearance of the yard has changed dramatically in the last couple of days. These photos are not as vibrant as the summer and winter shots but I quite enjoy the melancholy quality of them.
Your bird calendar for 2025!
The Ostdrossel 2025 calendar has a lovely bird photo from my backyard for each month. I included the main holidays and some fun dates to remember. There are two different covers because I also wanted to include the smaller desk size and needed a cover photo that worked. Find them in my shop here. There will be more sales in the future too. Share away! Happy Saturday!
The trailcams
have proven to be good substitutes for some of the Birdsy cameras. I go through the footage every day, which helps monitoring too. They are not as trigger happy as my photo setup, so it is not a pain to do that. Today, I got lucky at the bird bath, this is a lifer for me if trailcam footage counts into that. This adorable little round bird is a Winter Wren. I almost felt bad because it seems like the already shallow bath was still a bit too much for it but it did manage to get some splashing in.
October so far
has been rather pleasant, and this weekend, I didn’t even need to put socks on, but when you look around, fall has definitely set in and the trees are all showing off. One aspect I find interesting about this whole photo project is to see how the light changes with the seasons. Right now, it is very hard and bright, making the birds almost look unreal. But these Blue Jays are legit and so proud and pretty.
Calendars for 2025 are here!
The 2025 Ostdrossel calendar is ready for purchase. There are different formats, like every year, and they are pretty much all the same except for the cover of the desk calendar. That differs because the other one would not fit.
I am starting calendar season with a discount too, you’ll get 10 % off in the first week. Check them all out in my shop here. (Photos below are linked to the rectangular and the desk calendar. The 12x12 is here.
I will slowly start introducing the birds in the coming weeks too.
This week
has been very busy with work for me, and while I planned to have the calendar ready by now, I must admit defeat because I did not find the time. However, tonight I managed to get the “candidates” sorted out, and after that, things usually get easier, so I hope to have it ready early this coming week. When I compile the calendar, I look for photos that are pretty also when not cropped, with no cut off bird and no imperfections. Not all of my photos match that. For everyday posting, it does not matter but for a calendar it does. And that is what makes the selection tough. This year, the busiest months, April and May, have been when I was not at 100 %, so there are less photos to choose from, which made it easier. (I do hope that next April and May will be just like normal again though!)
In the meantime, I have been trying to keep up with the various trailcams and posting videos on the socials mostly. Activity has definitely grown a bit but there is still mostly Blue Jays, Mourning Doves and Finches. The weather is taking a proper turn towards fall now, though, so I am hoping that things will improve in the coming weeks.
Have a lovely weekend, here with some of the young Cardinals that are currently visiting the baths too.
The weather is changing,
and when the word “frost” was mentioned in the forecast today, I decided to take the plunge and remove the pond. Thankfully, taking it out is always quicker and easier than putting it in, and the task was done in about an hour. During that time, I reset the thermostat on the heated baths to make sure they work before I put them in place. For that, I just put them in the freezer (we have a garage fridge with an empty one) for an hour and after that, plug them in. The middle should become slightly warm. I do this every year to avoid surprises.
The heated bath is easier to maintain and will not trigger the camera as much, so it is actually a nice and relaxing thing. I will miss the pond though, like every summer it has brought great joy, especially this year after the miserable April and May. I am excited to see who visits, the first ones were the Cardinal siblings. I am also adding a photo of the pond liner sitting in place empty because people have asked about it. I got it at a home improvement store, and it holds about 40 gallons. The pump is in the middle, in a special box that keeps debris away from it. (Photo is clickable for larger view.)
This year has been ripe
with a wonderful natural phenomenon, the almighty aurora borealis. I spent a semester in Finland once, hoping to see it, but to no avail, and only now here in Michigan was I able to witness this magic for the first time. It happened earlier in the summer but also again right now. So I have been putting the camera out for timelapses. We are a bit too close to civilization for the really fun stuff but you can still see it, even just using my tiny little action camera. Here is a photo from last night. Isn’t nature magical?
It was
a quiet weekend with lots of work for me, but I finally got some photos that feel worthy of posting. This is a regular, a male Redbellied Woodpecker that has been visiting recently. I call him Slobber because he seems to suffer from an overproduction of saliva. You can’t see it here but there’s video too (which I may post later). He looks mighty fine again now that nesting season stress is over. I hope to see the female again too. And everybody else, really. The weather needs to cool down! (It is ok to have a nice fall too. I just miss the birds.)
This week, I will make the calendar and hopefully have it ready by Friday. I will make a special announcement when it is done too. Come good into Monday!
I feel bad
for not posting here so much this week, but the relative bird drought persists, and most of what I get that is worthy of putting out are videos. I am posting several times a week on my social media channels (they are all linked on this website too), but they are easy to use with videos, whereas here it is a bit more complicated. You should be able to check them all out even without an account, they are all public.
The photo setup still gets put to use as well but at the moment, there is just nothing really exciting happening in that respect, so there is more video output. With lower temperatures there will also be more birds again, so things will pick up here as well. (Fingers crossed!)
I have also been trying to somehow find a pattern behind the Youtube streaming, and while it works when it does, it frustrates me that the links always change when I had to restart it. I am trying to always update the links here in the livestream section but if I don’t just check the Youtube channel.
And the calendar will also soon be in the works. Despite so much weird stuff happening this year, I should have enough nice photos to fill one.
I hope you all have a pleasant weekend. Here is a White-throated Sparrow that has been visiting recently. It usually comes in the morning hours and can be seen on the ground cam livestream.
It’s becoming more fallsy
by the hour, and while I am sad the summer is pretty much over, I am also looking forward to more cozy times that require less maintenance outside. I will probably close the pond this week and set up the heated baths, and then hope for an uptick of activity while temperatures slowly drop. These last two days have seen White-throated Sparrows in the back corner of the yard, kind of the original reason why I set up a camera there. And some more baby Cardinals have shown up. The Cardinals really seem to have had a great breeding season.
I am curious to see when the first Juncos arrive, and also if this winter, there will be Red-breasted Nuthatches around. there weren’t any last year, they come and go in waves, depending on their food sources.
The new Birdfy 2 Feeder cam
I have been using two of the Birdfy smartfeeders this summer, their Hum and the Bamboo, and have loved the convenience and ease of use with them. I like trying out new camera solutions, and when they asked if I wanted to try their new and improved one, I was all in. I got to test the luxury edition with two cameras, and I am pretty impressed with this camera feeder.
They also gave me a presale link, and with the code OSTDROSSEL,
you can get 15 % off your order.
Communication with this company has been nothing but wonderful, they really seem to care about their products and the users, and you can also tell that they are interested in delivering the best product they can. One testament for that is that after the frenzy of feedercams being everywhere, flooding the market and backyards in various different qualities, Birdfy has actually set out to improve their setup. They are originally a camera company, so I guess it is easier for them because they already have the resources.
As a customer, you can benefit from that because it results in a solid and stable app (with no extra costs and an ok general ID feature and more payable options if you want them) as well as quality cams that focus on the subject - the birds. In birding groups on social media I see a lot of people posting their feeder cam photos and videos, and it is always so disappointing when the footage is focused on the background rather than the bird and / or so pixillated that it is hard to detect anything on it.
The Birdfy 2 comes in several different possible options, and you can decide what works best for you.
One camera is the Birdfy 2, a camera with wideangle lens and a resolution of 2 MP & 1080P. It produces nice and clear videos and works smoothly within the feeder housing. I am using it in the duo version as a camera for a side view.
The second camera is the one I personally like the best. It is the Birdfy 2 Pro and comes with the same wideangle lens as the 2 but an additional Portrait lens with a resolution of 3 MP & 2K. This portrait lens is where the fun is, when a bird lands on the feeder, it automatically focuses on it and takes snapshots. But in the app, you can also record from the lens alone. The video below includes material from all the lenses.
In terms of ease of use, I also really enjoy that the feeder is weatherproof and comes with a solar panel (optional with the most simple version of the feeder, included in the other two). I only needed to charge the cams in the beginning, there was enough sun to keep them running ever since. Here are some more specs.
The body of the feeder itself seems sturdy and easy to clean.
My only complaint would be that the mounting options exclude a solution on top of a pole or a tripod. I currently have it mounted on a pole with a baffle underneath to keep the critters out. It works nicely but does not look the finest. But maybe something like that is coming in the future. Birdfy has an open ear for suggestions.
The app is free and self-explanatory. You will get a simple form of ID for free, improved by adding your location, and the app will show your your video clips but also liveviews of your cams. You can download and save your favorites and also easily share them with the Birdfy community. And you can set the app to alert you when a bird is visiting, a feature that I have turned off because there are too many active MoDos 😆
So if you are in the market for a feeder cam/ smartfeeder, maybe consider the new Birdfy 2. The price seems to be on a par with other feeder cams but from what I have seen so far, the quality sticks out above all others that are currently available.
And a nice surprise
today was seeing this Whitebreasted Nuthatch on one of the photos from the CY65 trailcam (these cams have the option to take photos along with the video, which is very practical for an overview on what's captured). It was not on video, too quick, but made me very happy because I haven't seen one in months. I may have to set up a different trailcam there with a faster reaction time to get a clip of the nuthatch too, now that I know that it is around.
Fitting for the beginning of fall,
it was rather murky today and we finally got some much needed rain. So I thought maybe there will be some activity and put the photo setup out. Things are still slow but here are some handsome Blue Jays.
Early this morning,
I went to check my bird apps as usual and noticed that Birdsy would not connect. And what I have feared for a while now finally happened - the servers stopped working and all cams were disconnected. I sort of anticipated it any day now, given that the cams remained online for pretty much half a month longer than they said, but it still makes me sad.
That being said, I do enjoy watching especially the pond and the ground cam, so these two were the first I put my energy on to get back up this afternoon. And I am happy to report that I got them working.
I use OBS on a spare computer, and for right now I am not sure how recordings will work out but the livestreams are up and running on Youtube and also back here.
I will do a write-up of what I did once I am sure that this is how it works in detail but once you know a bit what you are doing, it is doable. Still not as smooth and easy as Birdsy but I guess we all have to move forward now. (Hoping that something like Birdsy will come along again at some point for all of us.)