Because I have a particular leaning toward the photography of birds, and because I feel as if some of them actually like me, at some level I always knew it was just a matter of time before I acquired one of those Singing Bird Clocks.  As far as I know, the singing bird clocks came out some time during the late 1990s.  The analog face of the clock is unique in that instead of numbers, an image of a bird was in the place of the number. Because I saw the ad for them on television, I immediately was turned right off.  It’s a thing I have for anything that is advertised that lacks any ability on my part to check it out first hand, enabling me to come to an informed decision.  In my view, something has to be said about reckless leaps of faith; but that’s just me. One day, as fate would have it, I found myself at the local Ocean State Job lot. As I walked passed the clock section, just to my left, as you can probably guess was a display of the 24th Anniversary edition of the singing bird clock.  I thought surly, if these clocks were that popular and were still available after 24 years in production,  “Sure. Why not?”  I promptly dropped the $20.00 bucks to the cashier and became the proud owner of a singing bird clock.  I synchronized and set the clock via the easy to follow instructions, popped in a fresh set of batteries, then placed the unit upon my wall.  Oh Joy! 06:00AM and 18:00 are now officially “Loon O’clock”.  There is a photo sensor on the clock so I don’t get alarmed by the sound of a Pileated woodpecker at 03:00AM, hence I am able to continue my slumber.  This birdy bliss lasted for 9 days.  Then it happened. One morning I headed off to work after my morning cup of coffee. It was still a little dark, so I thought nothing of the time.  When I came home later on that afternoon, I noticed at “Black-Capped Chickadee O’clock”, I heard nothing.  Thinking perhaps I was just spacing out, I didn’t give this another thought until “Blue Jay O’clock”.  Nothing.  I went into the kitchen where the clock was hung and to my dismay, the clock had quit working at 05:45 that morning.  “Whu the?” I took down the clock, and thinking I had defective batteries, I removed them, re-synchronized the clock, and put in another fresh set of batteries.  No joy.  I was able to rule out the batteries with a simple volt meter, boxed up the clock and off I went to the store to return it.

I got to the store, and told the man what happened and that I would just like a replacement.  That went without a hitch, and once again I brought the bird clock home, synchronized and set the clock, installed the fresh batteries and settled myself back into bird bliss.   Well, this time, bird bliss lasted only 3 days.  On day 2 at 06:00AM (Loon O’clock) I heard instead the sound of a Bald Eagle.  Thinking I had done something wrong, I removed the batteries, re-synchronized and set the clock popped the batteries back in, rehung the clock.  The correct bird chimed for the next 2 hours.  Then the Baltimore Oriole chimed when it should have been the Pileated woodpecker, then the Screech owl chimed when it should have been the Black capped chickadee, then an hour after that the clock fell silent.  The clock part still worked, but the birds never sang again.  None of them.  Well, Back into the box this clock went, and off I went back to the local Ocean State Job lot.  This time I had to prove the chimes didn’t work.  The bird chimes worked, but as I demonstrated, the bird chimes went out of sync as I advanced the mechanism of the clock.  I thought “forget this”, and said to the Customer Service representatives, “I just want a refund please”.  It would appear that my initial instincts about products I see on television are pretty darn good. My girlfriend was with me pricing up something at the store while I was doing my thing at the Customer service. Then she was wondering why I didn’t get another clock.  I told her I just couldn’t deal with another defective clock and I was just letting the whole thing go.  So she went and bought me a singing bird clock.  It is now day 11 at the time of this writing, and so far this latest clock has been functioning just fine.