New Products?

Every month there are new products on then market that are supposed to entice more birds to your back yard or make your life easier. If you subscribe to any birding magazines, most of them have a new products section each month. When you run a shop, you get flyers with what’s new and what’s hot on a daily basis. I have to admit, I don’t read all of these and often rely on a customer’s request it before it comes to my attention, there are a few that I think would be a great idea, if they worked, some that I was pretty sure were duds right from the start, (but I bought them anyway) and a couple that I’d have to file under “if you’d buy this you’re a true bird nut”.

One of those things that I’ve seen advertised a lot is the Audubon BirdCam, I thought about it and placed it in the “it would be great if it worked” section of my wish list. It’s a motion activated digital camera that you place near your feeders and snaps pictures of what ever comes by. A version of this is used by researchers, for example in Fundy Park where they are trying to get a picture of the elusive Eastern Cougar, a camera like this is set up near scent posts. I thought it would be great to not spend hours in the cold or heat or mosquitoes or even the kitchen window to try to get pictures of my feeder visitors. At about the same time I was going to try one out I had an order from a very good customer who is also my guinea pig for testing new products, I let him buy things, test them out and report back to me. If it’s a dud, it ends up in my yard if it passes inspection I’ll add them to inventory. I’m still waiting to see some pictures taken with the camera, you never know with the shots taken for the advertisement, I imagine they would neglect to say, “It snapped 2 million shots and this is the only one fit to print.”

My guinea pig also tested out the Hawk Eye Nature Cam, it’s the one you can place right inside a bird house and watch the comings and goings on a monitor. I still can’t believe the luck, it was set up in one house and all the other houses were removed to “force” the bird to go to the one with the camera, and it worked, I’d be moving it all over the yard for years trying to get the right house.

They were able to watch a Tree Swallow pair build a nest, lay and incubate eggs then feed young, no doubt the best thing on TV this summer.

Also available is the Timelapse PlantCam so you can record your plants growing if that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat, I’d just like to find out which cat keeps eating ours and throwing it up on the floor.

Last summer, when some Riverview rats were displaced by road work and ended up foraging under bird feeders, I was asked to order some SeedHoops to keep seed from being knocked on the ground. These are 30 inch screens that hang under the feeder and catch spilled seed, unfortunately they catch wind, snow, bird poop and every pigeon in the neighbourhood. Fortunately by the time they arrived from my supplier the rats were back underground...out of sight out of mind, and I still have a case of seed hoops.

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all another gem arrives in the mail, this time from BirdWatchers Choice, the W is a pair of binoculars, clever, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that they’re selling canned fly larvae. That’s right maggots, and a 70 gram can costs me $6.60 US before shipping, that’s $94.29 per kilogram...wholesale...for maggots...and to think, all this time I’ve been throwing them out.

The can reads: soft and moist, easy to handle, farm raised. I wonder if they have many requests for farm tours and what do the owners say when people ask what they do for a living. I thought I had it bad, I usually don’t tell strangers what I do, people think I’m nuts if I say I can earn a living making bird feeders and houses, I can’t imagine the comments when you say you’re a maggot farmer, would you even bother to put it on a resume or would it be easier to say you were in the penitentiary for those last 5 years.

If you bought a can, where would you store it, you wouldn’t want your teenage kids finding it when they come home late at night with a bad case of munchies.

I’ve been thinking of a new product for a few years myself, and if a maggot cannery can fly then my idea for deer repellant should be a hot seller. It came to me when I heard of a company selling Scandinavian wolf urine to keep deer out of your garden. I thought, “Why would Canadian deer be afraid of Scandinavian wolves.” If you really want to keep them away, (and this is my product), you should use Albert County deer hunter urine, this is a predator our deer are familiar with. If your deer are really smart and know when hunting season is over we’d sell Albert County deer jacker urine, the label would have one of those 4x4’s with enough lighting on the roll bar to land jets. The secret ingredient, Jack Daniel’s, if that doesn’t keep the deer out of the dahlias, nothing will.

Maybe I should do a business plan, now that I’ve put it on paper it looks like something ACOA would really get behind.

I’ve noticed quite a few posts on natureNB lately about earwigs in bird feeders, most seem surprised by this, for those of you who have one of my feeders that were made over a year ago this is likely a common occurrence. Now I make a “new and improved” feeder that is 95% more earwig free (although I don’t actually advertise this fact)...I bevel the top spacer to eliminate the area between it and the roof where the earwigs like to hide. I’m pretty sure that’s all it is, a hiding place, the discussion was weather or not they were attracted to seeds, I don’t think so as they’re in the empty outdoor display feeders as much as the full ones, (don’t worry we tap them out before we sell them). They hide in almost anything we have outside, now I make it a habit of dumping my work boots before putting my feet in, I shake the shirt I wear welding before I put it on, they’ll hide in anything.

In closing, one last earwig story, warning for those who already have an earwig phobia, stop reading now.

During the last peak in the earwig cycle I was visiting my parents in PEI, my father was complaining that his shower had no pressure. Thinking it was calcium deposits from their extremely hard water, I got a cup of vinegar and soaked it. It seemed clean though and nothing was bubbling so I took it off, it was one of those hand held jobs and at the beginning of the hose there was a screen, it seemed clogged…(last chance to put the paper down), when I opened the tap with no head attached a 5 inch plug of earwig pieces shot out into the tub, hummm, that’s likely to affect pressure. Then I started to think that the kitchen and bathroom sinks had screens too...and yes they were plugged with earwig pieces as well. I guess the earwigs like it under the dark cool cap on the well and many fall in, are chopped up by the submersible pump and delivered to all rooms in the house; so you decide, should the new product be a flavoured protein drink or the vermin-proof well cap.