Over the course of this year we noticed that some of Vyx’s potted flowers on the deck were attracting hummingbirds. I hadn’t even considered that any of those lived around here, but sure enough, they became our most frequent guests. When the flowering plants ran their course going into autumn, we replaced them with a flat hummingbird feeder and waited to see if they’d appreciate our offering.

It took them a week or so to realize what was up, but once they did, hoo boy! I’d start hearing their clicks and clacks and seeing them darting between the rails to sneak a sip or two all through the day. After a while they got to the point of just hanging out for up to half a minute, chilling out and sipping that tasty, tasty sugar-water.

This weekend I realized, oh hey, I have a GoPro HERO9 Black. And it can record 240 frames per second in high definition. A project was born!

First I had to charge the camera’s batteries. (I’d let them all run dry. It’s been a rough year.) Then came testing of the phone app to control the camera from inside the apartment, because no way was I going to camp out for an hour on the deck, potentially scaring away the creatures I hoped to film. After that, I camped out for an hour in my room (which looks out onto the deck) patiently waiting for birds to arrive so I could push a (virtual) button and make some recordings.

As an aside: I will happily change brands next time I need to buy an “action camera” if I can get a remote control app which isn’t so offensively sales-oriented. “Buy our cloud service! Buy accessories!” Shut up, GoPro, and let me control the camera already.

Finally came the wrestling with Davinci Resolve. I still love it, but partway through the edit I ceased being able to add title clips. A full reboot of the PC was required to clear that up. At least it happily imports 240fps HEVC video now.

Anyway, have a result:

It’s no “rubber ducks splashing into a tub of water in slo-mo” but it’s still something happening with slo-mo, so maybe this will do the kind of numbers that the “ducks splashing” videos did. (Seriously: Every other video I’ve uploaded to YT is in the double and occasionally triple digit viewership range at best… except the two versions of the “splashdown” video, which are over 10k each!)

All things being equal? I’m pretty happy with this, given that it went from “conception” to “final product” in under 24 hours.