One of hundreds of 'accidental' shots Bart took of himself while testing the BirdCam

THE STORY OF THE WINGSCAPES BIRDCAM began in fall 2004 when three personal interests — birds, photography and gadgets — intersected and led to a chance discovery.

While I’ve never been a serious birder, I’ve loved nature and wildlife my whole life. My interest in photography also began early and led to a brief career as photography editor and concert photographer.

I’m not as proud of my interest in gadgetry but I can’t deny it: If it has buttons and requires batteries, I want to play with it. It is a compulsion I share with our 1-year-old son.

Growing an Idea

The BirdCam story starts in fall 2004 when I was learning to use our first digital camera. It came with software that allowed us to control the camera remotely from a computer and even run a time-lapse program to shoot every few minutes.

I programmed the camera so every few minutes it would take a photo of peanut and suet feeders hanging outside the window.

Results were startling. I expected empty images but got beautiful shots of Red-headed, Red-bellied and Hairy Woodpeckers. We’d seen these birds at the feeders before but never this clearly.

Over the next month we continued to photograph our feeders like this. After work each day, we would rush to the computer to see what we’d captured, never knowing what we’d see in the next frame.