It all started when one of my Facebook friends began posting pictures taken by the camera built into her new bird feeder. I took delight in seeing the pictures and videos of the birds commonly seen around South Florida stop by for a bite and get their picture taken.

I happen to have my own bird feeder that I keep outside the sliding glass door of my spare bedroom’s balcony. I had moved it there after getting in trouble with the homeowners’ association when I had my bird feeder on the patio held in place by a shepherd’s hook. Sure, it attracted the usual birds but it also attracted ducks and mice. The homeowners’ association even threatened to fine me by the duck, so I had to take the bird feeder down. Now that I have it higher up, it attracts the birds and nothing else.

It wasn’t long before I thought of setting up my own bird feeder camera. I would be at the computer in the spare bedroom when I would hear a knocking at the window from the bird feeder swinging and tapping the glass whenever a bird stopped by. I could see the bird between the blinds that hung in front of the windows. But then the bird would see me and fly away.

Photographing the birds at the feeder was extremely tricky. I would slowly slide my phone’s camera behind the blinds in hopes of getting a picture of the bird but that too often backfired when I ended up scaring the bird away.

I happen to have an old phone that still works and thought of using that as a possible feeder camera. All I needed was an app that would take pictures as soon as a bird arrived. A quick search on Google Play found AlfredCamera, which works even better than I thought. By installing the same app on my current phone, it alerts me when there’s activity and films a short video. I can even stream the live video feed and watch the birds eat without any risk of scaring them away.

Now all I needed was a way to mount the camera to the glass. This was easily achieved by purchasing a plastic hook that came with some Command adhesive strips for easy, damage-free installation.

Now my bird feeder cam was ready.

And it works beautifully.

The only downside is that sometimes there’s so much activity at my bird feeder that my phone is practically buzzing nonstop with notifications. At least there’s an option to disable them.

And there you have it. Proof that American ingenuity is alive and well. But I only get these brilliant ideas only occasionally so I don’t consider myself a DIY guru. But I’ll certainly post my next great idea, whenever and whatever that may be.