Back in April I determined to employ my aging BirdCam 1.0 in a long term project, specifically to watch one nectar feeder all season (April through September) and learn more about hummingbird visitation on a day by day basis. The results have been, well, awful.Several problems: (1) Not many photos. 18 in April, 13 in May, 39 in June, 56 in July to date. (2) Not many photos of actual hummingbirds. So far I have recorded only 16 pictures of hummers, compared to 23 of me servicing the feeder when I hadn't shut the camera down. And (3) lots of blanks -- 83 photographs show nothing at all.
Hummers are presumably moving faster than my camera can record, given that I regularly see them over at that feeder, or else they don't visit as often as I imagine.
But this is science. I'm learning more about long term behavior than I knew, and what I learn could affect what I do next year. In any case we have a little over two more months to go in the project, and I am hopeful for fascinating data before all is said and done.
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