Episode 7: How I became the local “crazy bird lady”

The Saga continues…

From Alicia Jay:

Episode 7: It was September 2023 when they sent me my Bamboo Birdfy feeder for testing. I was so excited! I tracked the shipment & was in total disbelief they chose me to be a tester!

I set the feeder pole up a week or so before it arrived so the birds weren’t leery of its new presence in the yard. They can be so finicky at times.

Then the day arrived and the camera came home on September 29th! I came home from work & got busy immediately getting everything done. It was such a beautiful camera & held four times more food than their other cameras.

I made an unboxing video of it & everything I liked about it at first glance…. I felt like a kid again & got the same feeling like you had as a child on Christmas Eve anticipating Santa’s arrival! Such a magical feeling came over me knowing I was chosen over thousands of customers, but why? That answer wouldn’t reveal itself for several months. And to be honest? I’m not even sure I DO know the answer. Just my theory on the “why.” I really enjoyed the new views this feeding camera offered. It was definitely more aesthetically pleasing to me, to see the birds perched on wood rather than plastic. No sooner did I get it placed and put food in it did I have my very first visitor… A blue jay! I was absolutely delighted! I sent them all the videos of the camera, recorded from the camera itself & the videos I made about it. I discussed what I liked about it versus what was different about it. I honestly thought the two cameras I now had worked PERFECTLY, it was only that the aesthetic of the bamboo made it my most favorite (that & it didn’t require me to fill it daily). From there, the next few months became somewhat of a blur!

I had products being shipped, accessories, they even sent me a box of gifts for Christmas I absolutely adored!!!! The next product was the Birdfy pole that came with a standalone camera. It had an auger bottom so for here in South Florida it wasn’t the ideal type of pole to use, but I made it work. I placed it into my pollinator garden & secured it to my shed.

I had recently started seeing hummingbirds there so I placed feeders on their pole & used the stand alone camera to capture them. Although that’s not the intention of the product was when it was sent, they liked the ingenuity & thought I put into that & then sent me a hummingbird camera. If I was excited to capture hummingbirds on the stand alone camera I became even more excited when I got to use the hummingbird camera! It had 2 cameras in one & had 2 different views that recorded simultaneously.

That wasn’t the best part! The microphone on the hummingbird camera was so fine it was able to pickup the actual buzz & hum of their wings!!!! I was so blown away! Now, I make this all sound so amazing & wonderful… and it really was! But my job was to “test” these products they were sending. I joked with them at times I thought the title “tester” was perfect because, at times, the products definitely were testing my patience! Regardless, I was non stop on how/why/what could help me make them all work perfectly. Wi-Fi seemed to be my biggest hurdle. I had Wi-Fi extenders & thought that would be the perfect solution…. Only it wasn’t.

I started paying attention to certain comments & posts in all the different groups. From what I learned, I found that a mesh system really seemed to be more helpful with cameras like these. So? I made the purchase. What could possibly go wrong?

If you would like to see the entire saga just click here.

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