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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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  1. Ruff

    Any (feasible) way to keep feeders up safely with avian flu around?

    Due to getting suburban squirrels in plague numbers, I've already had to reduce my feeder numbers from 4 down to one-- they were all squirrel proof, spillage was the problem. Anyway, I noticed that birds had stopped coming, even the local chickadees that normally own it, and it occurred to me...
  2. Ruff

    Someone found a woodpecker nesting in a felled tree and...

  3. Ruff

    Crow Family Thanks Man Who Helped Them With Tiny Gifts

    [I find this story entirely credible. When crows started visiting my bird bath to soften pieces of dried bread and such, I started putting out some blue marbles for them, based on another story I'd read. As soon as the marbles started disappearing, the crows started leaving little food treats...
  4. Ruff

    Birds don't eat seed after adding pepper

    If you added pepper in powder form, it may be getting into their eyes.
  5. Ruff

    'Building The Perfect Squirrel Proof Birdfeeder'

    Well not quite, I'll just leave this here and say it's well worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=192&v=hFZFjoX2cGg&feature=emb_logo
  6. Ruff

    Bluebirds getting stuck in glassed in feeder

    I've always found that birds accommodate to unfamiliar and even threatening things pretty quickly. I'm sure the bluebird will build confidence in the same way that other birds do when confronted with scarecrows and plastic snakes and models of owls actually intended to keep them away. If nothing...
  7. Ruff

    My new project: Operation Friendship Garden Crow

    For starters, I grew up in a rural culture that was at war with the crows, something mostly based on the belief that they would ruin sweet corn crops but I think mainly based on the general feeling that they were somehow creatures of darkness (Christian memories of Woden's ravens?). The...
  8. Ruff

    No action on Goldfinch feeder loaded with Nyjer - ?

    Some years back I bought a HUGE farm sized bag of nyjer seed from Tractor Supply Co, at least 50 pounds weight or whatever the standard feed size bag of those weighs, I really prefer to forget, and the birds would have nothing to do with it, literally nothing. In the end I gave most of it away...
  9. Ruff

    Vancouver Island fish farmers rescue eagle from octopus

    Bald eagles are probably not a staple of the octopus diet... there's a photo at the link. Vancouver Island fish farmers rescue eagle from octopus Adam Chan Associate Digital Producer VICTORIA -- An island bald eagle was rescued from a watery demise Monday afternoon after workers at Mowi...
  10. Ruff

    site helps identify common feeder birds

    'Feederwatch' site helps identify common feeder birds This new site from Cornell Labs will be great for non-twitchers who have feeders going, unfortunately for North America only at this point...
  11. Ruff

    Night time bird strike mystery

    In the first light of dawn during migration, small dead songbirds are found at the base of the high rise buildings in Ontario, the ones where lights are kept on all night long. They hit the windows as they're migrating at night and are cleaned up in the morning before a lot of people are out and...
  12. Ruff

    Feeders go silent in autumn.

    I see it happening to me. There's a moderate to big increase in numbers as the summer loving resident and migrant birds are both visiting and then there's a lull as they clear out and head south. I always do have a small number of year 'round birds here though, rarely go more than 2 days with no...
  13. Ruff

    How to Squirrel Proof your Bird Feed.

    I found that it's best to find and/or devise ways to exclude SQ access. That ended up involving the purchase of professionally made SQ proof feeders and therefore some capital expenditure spread over a few years, and then improving the designs a bit when the SQs started defeating them, but it's...
  14. Ruff

    Vacation and feeders

    I fill mine and leave, they're mostly all 'controlled access'(exclude squirrels and rock pigeons, etc) so there's often some seed left when I get back. If going away for more than several weeks, let's say for months, I'd bring them in because there's no point in weathering them unnecessarily and...
  15. Ruff

    Feeder visited bt a Bear

    Even if you take down the feeders at night, there is no guarantee they won't visit in the daytime, particularly just before hibernation season where they are building up their fat reserve. I might suggest considering finding ways to suspend feeders in such a way that bears cannot reach them...
  16. Ruff

    Problems with my backyard feeders

    I was recently offering advice to a person with a similar issue that might work here: basically, put out some white bread for a short while to attract some bird traffic in. You'll get grackles, starlings and blackbirds and probably some city pigeons but the larger birds may draw the attention of...
  17. Ruff

    Why can't I attract birds?

    The thing is that birds are not looking for adventurous new ways to eat and so they tend to avoid any new setup, meaning a new feeder generally takes a long while to attract any. I do have a thought though, supposing the feeder in question is in a spot that's safe for them. At one time it was...
  18. Ruff

    new paper on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

    Whatever you say, all hail the visible benefits of international socialism as seen in all the socialist countries, especially of course Venezuela and Cuba, but a forestry program was the last thing ivory bills needed; they were exclusively birds of untouched old growth forest. I also had the...
  19. Ruff

    Birding on Google Streetview, a new frontier?

    Cornell Labs has taken notice and has this on their FB page, which makes me think the hobby's organizers are making a major media push for recognition...
  20. Ruff

    Birding on Google Streetview, a new frontier?

    There's still the active Facebook page though, as described in the radio interview.
  21. Ruff

    new paper on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

    I followed the ivory bill thing with excitement some years ago, but after everything from human to mechanical audio monitors to cyber video cameras were planted for even more years without producing a single positive ID, you have to accept that the species is gone. As far as Cuba goes, I don't...
  22. Ruff

    How do I use the Victory HT case?

    For myself, I use the case that comes with a quality bino for something else. In some circumstances it can be risky to store optical instruments in a case that may condense or trap moisture inside, and in all instances a case will render them quickly inaccessible.
  23. Ruff

    Problems with my backyard feeders

    It usually takes a fairly long time for any feeder setup, no matter how attractive, to start working and the numbers will build only gradually. Even once established there may well be periods when no birds visit, these will mostly be for reasons known only to them.
  24. Ruff

    Squirrels and deer

    Solutions short of mayhem are usually only temporary but for deer you can try scent deterrents, among which I've seen dryer sheets, coyote urine, human urine, and blood meal fertilizer recommended. Better perhaps are motion triggered spray devices you hook up to your garden hose- good for deer...
  25. Ruff

    Birding on Google Streetview, a new frontier?

    I caught this on a CBC radio broadcast yesterday. One of the stranger birding pursuits I've come across, strange for me I mean but others are really into it, often as the man says those who are in front of a monitor at work all day. The idea is to list as many birds as possible by touring...
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