MacGyvering Avian Surveillance
There’s a well-worn bird feeder that hangs just outside of our kitchen window. It was made by Stella’s late brother Robert. It hangs on a rope, well above head height. There was a time when we put seed in it. More recently, we feed the birds at a stand in the back yard that’s easier to reach. So this particular feeder has been empty a long while.
In March a Wren appeared to be renovating the kitchen bird feeder. For a week or more he appeared to be diligently filling it with nesting material. We could see the stuffing being amassed between the plastic sides of the feeder. Now and then the female would show up to inspect his handiwork.
I was impressed. So much so that I thought I should capture this activity on the part of our latest tenants. I happened to have a few Wyze Pan Cams 3’s in my collection of techno-junk. They had been purchased for a transient project, but were now idle.
I mounted one of the cameras to a small scrap of wood, then screwed that to the outside of the kitchen window frame. It was centered on the bird feeder, just above it. The pan/tilt function of the camera allowed me to get a good view of the work site.
If you have any interest in how this actually worked out, perhaps jump directly to the end. For this next bit is a significant distraction from what probably should have been an otherwise clear path.
Power
The Wyze camera gets 5 Volt DC power from a USB connection. Basically a phone charger. Initially, I ran a long extension cord from an exterior outlet on the garage. That was ugly, but let me get the camera installed and oriented.
Ironically, the bird feeder is very close to our breaker panel. But there is no outlet at that location. Nor would it especially easy to add one. I knew that Stella would not be happy with an extension cord laying along the driveway for any amount of time. I needed an alternative way to provide power.
Digging around in the garage I found the small Ryobi inverter I bought a while back. It takes one of the 18 Volt Ryobi One+ batteries, creating 120 VAC up to 150 Watts. It also has a pair of USB power ports, capable of 2.4 A.
I had originally bought the inverter to power a computer monitor that I need to display a slide show at a location where there was no AC conveniently available. It was inexpensive, and I already had some of the 4 Ah Ryobi batteries, so it was good solution for that limited task. It was effectively free, having been purchased using some of the mad money that I occasionally get by using Amazon affiliate links hereabouts.
The inverter would surely run the wee Wyze camera. The question is for how long? Also, should I power the camera from the USB port? Or from the 120 VAC outlet? Would that make a difference in terms of runtime?
To answer these questions I ran a couple of experiments.
Experiments
I started with a fully charged 2 Ah battery on the inverter. The camera was connected via USB. With a 64 GB micro SD card in the camera, I set it for time lapse mode. It would store one picture per minute. Each picture included a timestamp.
“Second verse same as the first, a little bit louder, and a little bit worse.” – Herman’s Hermits
The second experiment was that same as the first, but the camera was powered using the normal AC adapter, plugged into the inverter. Just to see if that allowed more or less run-time.
While the experimental series took a bunch of time, it yielded very little. In both cases the inverter kept the camera alive long enough to record around 470 – 490 frames. At 1 frame/minute, that’s around 8 hours.
Given that the female Wren would need to sit on the next for 12-16 days, the only practical way to record the process would be using utility power.
Our Vacancy Remains
While we did get a few pictures of the industrious little Wren and his partner, they never did move into the renovated bird feeder. I was confused and more than a little disappointed.
Stella has discovered that it’s apparently common for a male Wren to build several nests, from which the female picks the one she prefers. In our case, there was a period as they were building this nest that it got very windy. Being suspended by a rope, I suspect they were not happy with how much it bobbled around in the wind.
The Neighbors Have Better Luck
A few weeks later, our neighbor just to the south noticed a pair of cardinals with a nest in one of his trees. He’s since used one of our spare Wyze cameras to monitor their progress. Mrs Cardinal has been tending the nest, which had three eggs, now hatched.
