A Descent Up From Frustration

It was a rainy Sunday morning, and I set myself the task of setting up a WiFi nest camera. I had hoped to use it last year to watch the Eastern Phoebe nest, but it arrived too late. The birds had already started nesting, and I did not want to disturb them.

It started off fine. I powered up the camera, launched the app on my iPhone, configured everything, and voila, I had a picture over WiFi on the phone. I then poured down the camera, to install it out where the birds nest, to confirm the signal was strong enough out there. That's when things went south (why is "south" the 'bad' direction?).

The app would not connect to the camera. Worse yet, the error message said the "device may not exist". Curious as the device in question was in my hand. But it had disappeared from the app. So back I went to my desk to try and fix things.

I was not successful. Extremely frustrating. Now the camera does not show up at all, even after resetting everything.

And while I was sitting at my desk, I noticed a Pileated Woodpecker in the yard. Of course my bins were in the other room and by the time I retrieved them it was gone. I was not pleased.

I should not have worried.

The bird, and three friends, would be back.

Three are visible in the above shot. Two on either side of a tree on the left, and then the wings of the third are visible down and to the right. 

☆  ☆  ☆  ☆

At first I saw just one. But quickly I noticed there were TWO! How cool was that!

I was even more excited when they were both on the same tree.

And then I saw another fly by. THREE! And I was lucky enough to get an image showing three at once. 

And then a fourth flew by. FOUR! Alas I was not able to get a shot of all four at once.

This is the fourth bird. A bit to the left of the other three.

They were flying about the yard. And quite noisy. And, like the bird above, every once and a while would allow for a clear shot.

At least one camera was working. And as such did wonders to uplift my mood.

And there is still time. The Phoebe is calling about the yard, but nest building has not yet commenced. I'll be contacting support tomorrow ...

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For reasons that I've not found an explanation for, a group of woodpeckers is called a "descent".