As you may have seen on Twitter, I have recently wired up a Squirrel Feeder with some sensors using a Raspberry Pi and a ESP8266 micro controller to log environmental weather data.
Two years ago I came up with the idea to analyze the eating habits of squirrels in order to use the data as a biological indicator for upcoming winter weather conditions.
I've proposed a "Nuts Theory":
The amount of nuts taken by eurasian red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) from a feeder correlates with upcoming winter weather conditions significantly.
But how do I verify my hypothesis?
A basic prerequisite for verification is the availability of "nut consumption by squirrels" data. Unfortunately, despite some generic data, I haven't found any valuable data source on the internet as of today. Thus, I have to gather the necessary data on my own and the "IoT Squirrel Feeder" project came into existence.
You'll find more information about The Squirrel Cafe on my Gourmet Mecca pages. If you are interested in the Raspberry Pi Micro Computer and the sensors I have used, have a look at Nuts'n Bolts. Python is used to glue the bits and bytes together. The latest source code is available on GitHub.
Go to the Statistics page to have a look how many nuts have been eaten and to see the speed of nut consumption measured in nuts per minute [npm].
If you are interested in this project, please feel free to follow my Twitter account @TheSquirrelCafe. You'll see captured images of our guests instantly and project updates as well.