Evaluating Summer 2009

We had a pretty good summer here at Cary BirdCam. Now that the heat and humidity are fading, I am taking stock of the season and what I may want to consider for 2010.

Species: I photographed 24 species, including a surprise visit by a female Summer Tanager. This is down from the 25 I photographed in 2008. I did especially well capturing images of juveniles--at least species were conclusively identified.

Foods: I focused on the basics (suet, sunflower, safflower) this summer. I had to abandon nyger early on as it had poor Goldfinch support. I didn't even bother with peanut products which tanked in the spring. Suet was amazingly popular deep into August. For 2010 I will definitely need to stockpile suet, especially the hot pepper product that was a smash hit with the birds but a dud for squirrels.

Feeders: I added a new platform feeder which was not impressive in performance. I'll probably review that in the next week.

Water: What a disaster! My dripper-mister system malfunctioned and was finally ripped out. And the birds seemed to favor the new ground level bird bath which was off-system.

Hummingbirds: This was not as lively a summer as 2007 or 2008, but it got going eventually and I had some fantastic photos even of males and juveniles which eluded me in the past. I added a nectar feeder and all four had good traffic.

Squirrels: I started the summer with great concern that I had a safflower-eating squirrel, but by late summer I enjoyed a good relationship with two animals which worked off a platform feeder I reserved for them and stayed off the rest of the feeders. I hope that continues!

Composition: By late summer I was avoiding experimental subjects and instead focused on key traffic points including my suet and platform feeders and the ground level bird bath. I think this strategy did improve my odds of hitting the juveniles.

BirdCam: I continued to lose days because of too-careless operations, including not turning the camera on after replacing its SD card, but generally I did better than in previous seasons.

So in the end we had a marvelous summer with the backyard birds, enjoyed seeing youngsters grow up, and learned a few new things useful when next summer rolls around.