I tried my new birdcam to capture pics of the Goldfinches. I made a couple of strategic errors. I now have 1908 pictures of Goldfinches from just over 1 day of photography! There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Lessons learned:
If you know you're going to get lots of pics (and I pretty much expected that they'd be there till the Thistle ran out!) don't set the exposure for every 10 seconds! The camera gives the flexibility for longer intervals...use it.
10 seconds is not really 10 seconds. It seems to take a pic every 12-15 seconds as evidenced by the timestamp. Interesting. Is it detecting the motion and then waiting 2 seconds to click the shutter? Or after it clicks, does it wait 2 seconds to reset its timer? Don't know how I'll figure that one out.
1900 pictures is a LOT of pictures to have to look through to find the "good" ones!!
Don't try to cheat and get too much on camera. I have two sets of thistle feeders and a hum feeder within view of the camera. Thought if I set it up to see all 3 (even tho I thought hum feeder was too far away for clear focus...and it is) I'd get some interesting shots. Instead I have 1900 shots that I wish were better composed. You can see most of one thistle sock on left clearly....and some of more distant socks on right...center of frame is blurry hum feeder and a safflower feeders. I need to make up my mind where I want to aim the camera and don't get greedy!
Goldfinches start early and end early! They arrive shortly after dawn, but seem to quit feeding by mid-afternoon. The last pic with birds in it on Fri was at about 3:20pm. There was still plenty of light for another 2 hours (those feeders are on the west side of the house) but there were no pics. Things picked up again on Sat morning at 7:06a.m.
Goldfinches can go through a lot of thistle! Lots debris on the ground...is it Thistle hulls or whole seeds? Overflow birds will pick through it, so I suppose there's whole seed. Lots of waste. Thistle is pretty expensive, so I'm kinda glad I'm not feeding them this way year round!
I liked this picture because unlike most of the others, the goldfinches are all looking at the camera!
2 comments:
Yes, I agree with you about the Bird Cam. I recently got one too, and it takes some experimenting to figure out the best way to program it and set it up. I have been having fun with it though.
Wow, there are so many!!! Usually my birds won't let but maybe 2 birds at a time per feeder. I guess when it comes to tistledown goldfinches are willing to share!
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