Last year, when I was feeling particularly low and searching for a bit of joy, I splurged on a Bird Buddy. It’s a bird feeder with a solar-powered camera that captures backyard visitors. When it arrived, Paul reconfigure a pole for this little feeder. I went through the process of installing the app and pairing it with the internet–and failed. Frustrated beyond reason, I tried a dozen times to launch this without success before contacting support. Through some back-and-forth, their tech support determined that it was our Internet–it wasn’t strong enough or consistent enough to support the camera. Our internet is sketchy. We’re too far from a hub for a DSL connection, not even on the map for cable, and a granite hill blocks the line of sight tower service. We’re left with a system that uses cellular signal–and we get only one bar on our phones at the house. Sad and disgusted, I tucked the Bird Buddy away and forgot about it.

I stumbled across it last week when cleaning out the laundry room. A month or so ago, some of the components of our Internet system were replaced. I charged up the camera, reset it to the factory settings, and gave it a try. And it worked! It took four days for those beautiful but greedy Blue Jays to find it. This morning I woke to a notification and they visited multiple times today. Hopefully they are spreading the word to the other neighborhood birds!

More to come! 😊

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