It's one thing to have a pair of oak titmice move into your bird box.
It's another thing to sit in your TV room and witness the events going on inside the box.
A couple years ago I gave neighbor Richard a bird box, and this spring he equipped it with a cheap security cam wired it to an old black and white TV monitor.
He's been bearing witness to the timeless but fleeting drama of avian growth and development.
Today I stopped by to see for myself.
One of the chicks was flapping and climbing over its siblings, and I observed that "fledging is just around the corner".
"Then I've got to catch that stray cat soon."
"You betcha". Fledglings are delectable morsels to cats, but one hardly makes a meal.
Richard says that there's a frenzy of feeding just before sundown.
Mom and dad come and go, and the chicks gobble moths, poop and grow.
As a distraction to the boob tube, my neighbor prefers the bird box to commercials.
2 comments:
This looks like a great idea. I would love to give something like this a try someday.
I never saw the point of buying a TV before, but now I might be convinced to get one. Unless I can hook the security camera up to an old computer instead...
I want to get a similar set up in one of my owl boxes, but I've been too lazy to go see if they have even been used.
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