First things first... The eBirdseed.com live streaming bird cam is back up and running again... To date we've had 21,620 hits on that cam alone.

(We had about 4,000 on the first web camera.) As time goes on I'll experiment with ways to get the rig back outdoors and improve the image quality significantly without exposing the hardware to Mother Nature's wrath. (The plan is to have several video camera cables available for the single cam... One connection will be to the current backbone of our inside configuration, and another will function as our good-weather outdoor hookup... All we have to do is bring down the entire system, unplug the vid from one cable and hook it to the other, and then reboot everything. (Think of a single lamp that can either be connected to a 15' extension cord or to a one-hundred footer.) Whoopee! I get to play with a soldering iron and cables and jacks and stuff!

Putting the technical aside, Mrs. CCA and I went to a Super Bowl party tonight, and we struck up a most interesting conversation with a woman who had a rather strange encounter with a large bird. She said that she first spotted the creature when it was staring at her through one of her windows. She said that it was only about 8' away at the time... To make this more intriguing, she said that after she left for work, the same bird (or similar ilk) appeared two towns away at a traffic light. Her description was that it was big, and brownish in color... My guess was that it was a turkey, but she believed otherwise. She was of the idea that it was some sort of raptor - a hawk or even an eagle. That certainly is possible... In any event, the moment was too transfixing to warrant a dash for a camera... So we may never know. But it goes to show that even in the midst of a great Super Bowl, the topic of birds is never too far away...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

First, in case you haven't heard, the mid- and coastal-Atlantic region is facing a monster storm. Hope you're prepared...

Next, an apology for that last post... I'm sorry that I was so snippy... But simple fact be told, there's no reason why the public should be exposed to malware and viruses. We all work too hard for that garbage. Back when I used to teach in the corporate world, I used to advocate for the death penalty for sinister hackers... It's just a matter of time before their cyber hooliganism is going to kill somebody and they know it...

Not to worry... I'll fix my home machine, and all will be fine. In the mean time, eBirdseed.com remains as clean as a whistle, just as it always was. (Why, why, why, can't other companies run clean systems like eBirdseed.com???)

Deep breath...

And on a lighter note... Check out the tracks below...

Ya' know you've got turkeys on your deck when... Jeez Louise, look at the size of those prints! Of course, that does present a problem - when large animals like turkeys get close to humans, the results can be tragic (the toms have taken to attacking delivery trucks.) I guess we can just hope for the best.

Final thoughts... The wife saw a wren today on one of the feeders and there was even a sparrow checking out the birdhouse. Hope springs eternal...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This may be my shortest post of all time... All I can say is thank heavens for eBirdseed.com and the security they use to protect you the customer from viruses and spyware.

Suffice it to say that I've spent the entire day trying to kill a virus on one of my home machines. (Yeah it's the one that runs our streaming kitchen web cam, but is completely removed from eBirdseed.com... Like I said... Thank heavens for eBirdseed.com!) I'm 99% sure I know where the virus came from, and it's a commercial site to boot. (Both the wife's and my machine collapsed after visiting that one site - NOT eBirdseed.com!)

Anyway... As always, you're safe with eBirdseed.com, and I'm tired.

Signing off now... There's a lot of work to be done.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. I believe Dante wrote of the nine circles of Hell... I hope one of those is reserved for people who write malware.

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well the title of this post pretty much says it all...

But that's it... Tough economy... Tough news... Tough, dangerous world... But for just a few minutes we got just a slight smile out of a picture of a bird... Stupid fun on a winter night... There are worse things.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Taking a slightly different tack... That of the long-term role we play as handy-folks and backyard birders... Consider the shot below...

Just a couple of feeders, right? Well, yes and no. While they are just bird feeders, they also are pressure treated posts, carefully placed, leveled, and plumbed. And, as such, they may well outlast me. Let me explain... When I was 25, I built things to last, but I knew that I'd outlast them. No more. Take a look at the kayak the wife and I built , the trellis, and the hutch... Though I'm not "AARP age" yet, it's clear that with just a little bit of care, this stuff will be around when I'm ash. So what will the strangers (perhaps even unborn right now) think of the feeder posts and all the other stuff we've done with the yard and the house? Who knows...

Twenty five years ago I developed a sizable lump in my armpit and went to the doctor post haste. Obviously, he did the usual medical mumbo jumbo. In the week I spent waiting for the test results, I did a ton of soul searching, and one of the worst moments (setting aside family issues) was standing in my cramped shop realizing that strangers were going to scavenge my most treasured possessions - my tools... And they wouldn't even appreciate the history. Long story made short, the tests came back negative. But the lesson learned haunts me to this day - when we build things (be it shops or feeder posts), we never know who will inherit our handiwork. Consider the plane below...

That's a 19th-century Thos. Appleton coffin-sided smoothing plane with a Moulson Brothers blade. The steel is of such quality that I've only had to sharpen it once in the last decade. Though worth only $75, it is one of my most cherished belongings. What's it's history? How many before me have held that tool with great reverence? Gone. All gone.

I know this sounds a bit macabre, but as you make adjustments to your yard (including the feeders), consider those who will follow... It's just a matter of time...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, that's the end of my 10 pound crawfish Christmas present...

I'm sure you're thinking the same thing I am... Paraphrasing the famous "A Christmas Story" movie when the Bumpuses' dogs devour the holiday turkey...

The heavenly aroma still hung in the house. But it was gone, all gone! No mudbugs! No mudbug sandwiches! No mudbug salad! No mudbug gravy! Mudbug Hash! Mudbug a la King! Or gallons of mudbug soup! Gone, ALL GONE!

It's a sad thing, but it was time to move on and stop grossing out the wife. None the less, keep in mind that legend has it that a few ghost carapaces still haunt this joint, and can make themselves known as (of all things) the embellishments of a cap. Woo! Scary!

Moving on... We fed the crows some bread today, and were pleasantly surprised that the seagulls didn't spoil the party. At this point, I'm pretty sure the crows communicate via a sentry system, but I can only guess at how seagulls spread the word. I do know that they (seagulls) keep watch from remarkable altitudes. Does the sudden change in height by one bird signal food to all the rest? Is there a call? Do they use a "round robin" routine to scope out the most likely areas? I'd like to study seagulls more, but their aggressive behavior will drive away the more traditional backyard birds, and that's not an option. Oh well...

Beyond the local crayfish extinction and the seagulls, it's cold here - about 11 F. Having lived in Caribou ME, I'm normally quite used to these temperatures, except when I'm profoundly stupid and dress inappropriately. So anyway, I went out earlier, and practically froze my hands off... Just a word to the wise...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thought we might take a brief break from the birds for just a moment and re-visit late December, 2006. Way back then, we spoke of the wisdom of organizing your birding photos and files. Take a look at it now...

That's over 5,000 files, and 16 Gigs worth of bird stuff... (Needless to say... If anyone wants an east coast bird photograph, and can't find it in our library, just let me know... Odds are that we've got you covered.) But there's a bigger picture here... Note the organization... All it takes to back up a boat-load of work is a few clicks in Windows Explorer, and everything is taken care of. (As a matter of fact, I'm doing that now as I type.) And in this day and age of DVDs, on-line backup services, and cheap ($100) terabyte hard drives, not having redundant backups is simply unforgivable.

So let's see... What else is going on?

For some reason, the birds seem to be off their feed - that is, they're not hitting the feeders as hard as normal. Why? The weather forecast doesn't look that bad... We haven't seen any hawks around... Ground-based predators don't really pose a threat... What do they (the birds) know that we don't? In a way, it's kind of fun to ponder the mystery, but in another it's kind of spooky... We make sure that the birds have food and water, and sometimes they splurge, and other times they go missing... Why?

Signing off, but watchful...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)