A Cardinal and a Nuke Sub
Well, the NovaBird camera is "sort of" back online. The snapshot above of a female (or perhaps juvenile) cardinal was taken with the ailing rig. (Click here and then use the magnifying glass pointer to see the photo in all its glory.) Basically, the camera has a grudge against its battery. More accurately, it's starting to draw quite a bit of current (a bummer for a battery), and now only the transformer can keep the cam happy. Time will tell... Anyway, today we got roughly 150 photos over a 3-hour interval, which is pretty good.
Also, it looks like our young house sparrows are fledging, and if they weren't so "lentille peu coopératif" ("camera shy" in breathtakingly horrid french) I'd have pictures for you. Unfortunately, the sparrows are "lentille peu coopératif", and there you go.
Other stuff... (Read that, "Brace yourself, the idiot writing this is bored!")
Normally, we go out of our way to keep company business out of this blog. And that's as it should be... We write about backyard birding, and feeders, and occasionally about more esoteric stuff like fixing a grill or the universe or God. But not tonight... Tonight I'm going to "out" a nasty little company secret within eBirdseed.com. (I prefer to think of this as "McClellan'ing" my boss...) Onward... Roughly a month ago, Gordon (one of the owners of the company) asked if I wanted some sort of backyard critter gadget as a sort of grist for the blogging mill. (Example: We sell a squirrel "Ferris wheel thingy" that would make for some great photos.) So far, so good. Being both an engineer and an amateur birder, I suggested that the company purchase a more practical (though slightly pricier) backyard birding adjunct - a nuclear submarine.... Ok, ok, ok... There were upsides and downsides... Let's take a look...
- Birds love boats. Show me a picture of a marina without birds, and I'll show you a picture of the moon. (Editor's note: "Huh?")
- My suggested below-surface vehicle would "over budget" the company by roughly $2.6 billion... Alright, there's a point there... That would take some creative financing.
- But think of the Super Bowl ads... Envision an eBirdseed.com nuclear sub in some guys' backyards covered in feeders and bedecked with a huge beer banner on the side. Cha-Ching! (Eat your heart out Bud Light blimp.)
- Squirrel problems? Cat problems? Coyote problems? Nothing that an Exocet missile can't fix.
- The wife and I would get to play with the nuclear power plant and control rods. While we have no actual training dancing with a nuclear reactor, we're both pretty good foosball players, and I'm betting that we could handle those graphite control rods just fine.
- And suppose the worst did happen... Suppose we did go critical and cut Cape Cod in half and turned Nantucket Sound into a rolling boil. Everyone likes a clambake, right? Besides, "eBirdseed.com" would be on everyone's lips... Still more Cha-Ching!
Still, Hades hath no fury like an engineer scorned... Watch this blog and you will see birds and a working fusion-powered sub.
See you by the feeders and bring a periscope!
CapeCodAlan
eBirdseed.com photo library