Nature Done Wright

   My friend Mike (the electrical engineer), his son Max and I installed the new duck box video-cam on Sunday.

  Installation was far, far easier than the original screech cam, though only time will tell how effective it is.

  One thing is sure: This cam has a built-in microphone and was prewired, so all we had to do was attach the cam to the top of the inside of the nesting box, plug it in to the TV, and adjust the focus.

   I still have to bury the quarter-inch-thick connecting cable, but I am not going to put it inside PVC pipe first, which is a lot of work and money.

  I also have a tiny cellar window open a crack for the wire to go through. I sealed it off with tape but it is less than ideal.

   All things considered, though, the installation went well.

   In the best of all possible worlds, the camera would be mounted inside the wood-duck box before the wood-duck box is mounted outside on a pole.

   That way, you can install the camera and adjust the focus from inside the comfort of your home, and you do not have to go back and between the camera and the TV monitor to set the focus.

  The first cam image is of a stuffed toy owl, which we used to test the focus.

    My godson Max had brought out a stuffed toy squirrel to use, but I just didn’t want the first image I saw with the new cam to be a squirrel. 

   In fact, I am hoping it will be squirrel-free, and the wood duck box has a baffle to that end.

   The sound worked from the get-go — so much easier than the first cam installation.

  (The installation team of Mike and Max is pictured at right. Thanks, guys.)

  I am now at the point where I have four viewing options on my TV menu: TV shows, the DVD player, the screech cam and the duck cam.

   Sad to say, the duck cam probably won’t get much action until April or May, when the wood ducks go house-hunting again.

   The cam had to be installed now, before an owl moved into the screech box nearby.

   The last thing I did was to ask my friend Seymour Drakes put wood putty across a crack in the roof of the duck box to keep the new camera dry.

   As Mike was installing camera, I realized I could see daylight through the split board atop the nesting box.

  Seymour Drakes, a friend of this blog, stopped by and (as luck would have it) happened to have some wood putty.

    Fyke member Tom Nicastri captured this rare shot of Seymour at work.

   Sad to say, Seymour tends to favor the "gray" look a little too much.

  All we need now is a name for that duck cam and, of course, some ducks next spring.