eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Yeah, it's that time again... Time to bring in the hummingbird feeders and give them a good cleaning. You can see ours in the snapshot above. (Actually, let me correct myself a bit here. It's almost time to bring in the hummingbird feeders, at least around here on Cape Cod. We still have a few migration stragglers, so I think we'll leave one "sugar-water filling station" out for another week or two.)

Let's see... What else is "gnu"? The Hawk Eye Nature Cam sits forlornly waiting for a new adapter that will convert its old analog signal into the ones and zeros I need to stream the imagery into your machine. I contacted the vendor, and got the following detailed info for the camera. (I list this for the benefit of not just the nerds out there, but also for anyone who might want to try a cam project.)

• Photographic device: 1/3 video sensor
• System: PAL/CCIR: NTSC/EIA
• Effective pixels: PAL:628 x 582 pixels; NTSC/EIA: 510 x 492 pixels
• Image area: NTSC: 4.69 x 3.45mm
• Resolution: 380 lines
• Scanning frequency: NTSC 60 Hz
• Lowest Illumination: 0.2 LUX
• Sensitivity: +18 DB-AGCON-OFF
• Power Source +6VDC-12VDC
• Power consumption: 200 MW

One last thing - a completely unrelated, and chilling film recommendation... I just watched the 2009 documentary, "Day After Disaster". This work explores the carnage and anarchy that would be created by a nuclear attack on Washington D.C. While there is the unfortunate perfunctory computer generated graphics, there is also a ton of research. In short, this is not for young children, but it really is a must see for young adults and adults.

Gotta run... See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before we get started, just an update on the eBirdseed.com streaming cam story... Well, it' turning into a brawl. The problem is that of making hardware and software happy with each other. I'll keep you posted, but for the moment, let's just say that it ain't pretty.

As for the random bird pics... I put out the NovaBird camera at sunrise when the birds were really active. Eight hours later we had 437 photographs (apx. one shot/minute). Let's see what we've got... Looks like 45 keepers with 20+ being pretty dog-gone good.

Most were of the grackles, like the ruffian below...

Man, those can be mean looking birds...

Notice that one of the claws is kind of catawumpus?

This next image probably explains a lot...

Aside from the grackles, we also had a cardinal or two...

While that last picture is interesting, it's also less than flattering. Let's try another...

That's better. In fact, it ain't bad at all...

The more I practice (demean?) bird photography, the more I wonder why more hunters and fisherman aren't serious birders or at least backyard birders. It's the same thrill of the stalking, and no blood is spilled. (As a kid growing up, I lived to fish - for me, birding holds the same excitement, it's just a heck of a lot more humane.) Truth be told, today was a good day. Tomorrow and the next I'll probably get skunked. As it was with fishing, so it is with birding. But it's still fun... And if I can just get that Web cam going...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This entry (and the one before), focuses on setting up a streaming bird cam. (It turns out that bird cams are pretty common, so I don't feel too guilty about dwelling on this sort of thing.)

The "Big Picture" is that we want to take our wee "Hawk Eye" video "thing a ma bob" (below) and get it to talk via a digital converter with the computer. Down the road, we can tackle the Internet, but right now the goal is just to get the camera talking with the PC.

Unfortunately, this camera setup is cleaning my (our) clock(s). There ain't no way that this vid rig is going to play nice with our kitchen machine, and even one of our more stalwart Dell computers is struggling. We can get the drivers and the video software to install, but images on the PC are animated greenish-whitish junk. From our "What It's Worth Department", here's what we've done so far:

• Tried basic install on the AMD kitchen computer - not gonna happen.
• Checked the camera on the TV - all cool.
• Installed the system on a very proven platform. At least that went OK.
• Tested the software, and all systems are go from there.

So what's left? Either we've missed something, or the digital converter has gone MIA..Oh goody...

This is the umpteenth cam I've set up, and if anyone tells you it's an "A B C" process... Ummm... Errr...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Before I get to the new video camera, first a word of warning about a flu bug from which I'm still recovering... Last night, I felt a little lightheaded, chocked it up to exhaustion, and went to bed. This morning I woke to a slight dizzy spell. Uh oh... Well, I got up, had a few pretzels (they always calm my gut), and started the usual. Nope. Wham! I owned those pretzel for about five minutes. (I would have made a fantastic Linda Blair.) So the day was spent shaking, sweating, aching, and giving anything I ever ate the mighty "Heave Ho" (including those french fries I consumed back in the third grade). Humor aside, it was a pretty vicious attack. I'm not sure if it was the swine flu, but it was something. My advice is that if you're a young adult, in good shape, and with no pre-existing medical conditions, you'll probably weather the storm. If you don't fall into that category, seek help, ASAP. And no matter how young and healthy you are, don't try to be a hero and "tough it out". Based on what I had, I'd say that the experts aren't giving this bug enough caution. For heaven's sake... If you get sick, and it strikes you hard, play it safe and see a doctor ASAP. (Here's the official CDC link.)

Alrighty then... That's enough of that. On to the new camera! The first photo is of "The Hawk Eye Birdhouse Spy Cam" as I was unpacking it.

So far, so good. There were no dents, the packing was good, everything seemed clean and in order. The next shot is of the breast unpacked.

The camera, brochure/instructions, transformer, and cable were all there and looking A1. (The camera is the wee silver thing sitting on the spool of cable. Here's a better shot of it.) But there's a wee problem... We didn't receive the converter that let's the RCA connectors from the cam cable talk with the USB port on the PC. Dang! I'm hoping it arrives tomorrow.

Onward! I'd like to offer the tech specs, but they're tough to find. The Chinese-made camera itself supports a 1,000' cable using nine extensions, it handles color and sound. It also has an infrared feature which is kind of cool. It can be hooked to a TV or a computer, and it does support live streaming video. (The live streaming part is going to take some work. I'll keep you posted, believe me.)

Better run, this old body is needing a break. Now, where are those pretzels and the remote?

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's more crow video. Kind of fun...

Who knows what communicative mechanisms crows have? I can recognize some of the calls, and know their visitation habits, but what of other stuff like head bobs, timing, and body postures? (Oh great... I'm turning into Dr. Doolittle. Better move on...)

Made some bread today... Always fun, (though not as neat-oh/keen-oh as brewing beer). This time it was a small loaf of black pepper. Ingredients included garlic powder, dry milk, and dried onion.

Ya know, I was thinking... A loaf of the above and maybe some homemade chowder would make for a good contest prize. (The amount of chowder depends on how much quahog I can dig...) Hey, I'll even throw in a framed pic of me out on the flats wearing Mickey Mouse ears... Unfortunately, the contest is an old one... Just waiting for a winner...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, it sure looks like the downys are eyeing the birdhouse...

There seems to be some question as to whether the house itself is acceptable or not. She (the female downy) keeps trying to widen the hole in the face of the box, and while that might be feasible with the wood behind the aluminum diamond plate, it sure would be an exercise in futility relative to the metal plate itself. Time will tell about that issue. I guess there's a larger question here... Why is the female fussing with the size of the opening in the first place? She certainly has no problem with ingress and egress, so she must be trying to ensure that her larger male partner (and male fledglings) is/are comfortable with the digs. Fair enough. The last thing we want is a stuck bird.

On a different note, the wife picked up one of those metal "branches" that fits around the feeder support shaft. As it is not secured, the crows can move it however they best feel fit, and in doing so seem to have devised a more comfortable manner to raid both the seed and the suet. That's fine - crows rule. (Photographs of the metal branch to follow in later posts.)

Finally, welcome to Autumn (September 21st). Ahh, this is when the weather gets good. Here on the Cape, the leaves change, people have fires in the fireplace, the air is clean. When I was younger (dumber?) this was the ideal time for a swim. We'd wait for a cold, rainy day and then hit the beach. Man oh man, the water felt like a bathtub. The only time a person would be cold is when he surfaced... Youth...

Gotta run, see you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our poor old NovaBird remote camera... We've pushed that poor thing well past the 10,000 photograph mark. Still, today's efforts aren't bad. I set it on the ground to get another perspective.

The camera took 286 photographs total, and of those 30 were keepers. The top picture is of course that of one of our "Don" squirrels. Think of them as furry little ruffians. Still, there is great beauty there, and they do make for great alarm bells for our birds when a predator is around. (Beyond that, more than one "Don" satiated the hunger" of a wild beast before it could get to our feathered friends.)

Obviously, the mourning dove is the follow up. It's a shame that the common is so often dismissed as "plain". That really is a stunning creature.

On a related note, I should be updating our bird photo library, but to be completely honest, there's so much up there now (2,000 images) that we're starting to lose the forest for the trees. This whole library thing needs a re-think. Maybe I should archive everything but the best of the best, and lay the framework for not only the existing collection, but also for our growing audio and video stuff. Decisions, decisions...

Continuing the theme of A/V, I believe our new Hawk Eye Nature Cam will be here shortly - maybe even tomorrow. Hot dang! A word of warning though... Unlike our last cam which was straight digital, this one is going to be an analog to digital system. (In layman's terms, what that means is that unlike the old cam that took video in the 1s and 0s that makes computers happy, this new bird cam will capture the action in good old fashioned analog, and that will have to be converted into digital, then munched through my network, and then on to you. Not to worry... As always, eBirdseed.com will be rock solid. But CapeCodAlan's network on the other hand is about to take a beating. The last two times I had to make this sort of thing work I had to rebuild not only my own network, but also reconfigure both my cable modem and my router. Oh goody.)

Stay tuned, and see you by the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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eBirdseed and misc. references

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of our readers asked that I write more about animal behavior. Fair enough. But that got me to thinking... I don't know how many of you are aware of the fact that you can search our blog. (We now have 400+ posts.) Take a look at the screen shot below.

That was taken from the main eBirdseed.com blog page. The search field is inside the red oval. (Obviously, I entered the word "behavior".) Anywho, that query turned up over 20 results, and more than a few should make for appropriate reading. Still, the point is well taken, and I will write more about bird behavior.

And speaking of bird behavior... The crows continue to harangue for their scraps. The problem is that once the freezer is clean, it's clean. Mrs. CCA and I have made a concerted effort to be more efficient in the usage of food, and at the same time the crows seem to have become fussier in their choice thereof. In short, there's plenty of seed on the ground, and they're just going to have to get over it. (Geez, given their actions, you'd think we're asking them to eat liver and lima beans!) But take one extraordinary observation away from this post... Crows do not just communicate amongst themselves. They literally try to communicate with humans, and that is kind of creepy. (Doubt corvid intelligence? Take a look at this "Crow Brain" post.)

Lastly, we've got some exciting news! Looks like we're going with a "Hawk Eye Nature Cam" for our new toy. Now is that cool or what? Oh the mind boggles... Live streaming bird cam just like in the good old days... Adding to our bird video library... Having an indoor/outdoor camera we could move around... Night shots looking for owls... Tree branch perspective... Live streaming nor 'easter video... Ground-level night critters... A streaming balloon cam... Maybe even an RC model ATV squirrel-chasin' cam!

This should be really, really fun...

Stay tuned...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the never-ending pursuit of trying to bring you the finest in birding entertainment, we've been mulling over various schemes that might show the winged creatures (et al) in new and perhaps even humorous situations. I didn't shoot the following, but you get the idea...

One small problem... As we've mentioned several times in this blog, predator activity has been rising steadily, and setting up an obstacle course would probably increase the food supply. Not good. So we've played with video, audio, and the usual still shots. But that ain't nearly good enough. We'd like to put the streaming Web cam back into service, be able to move it around (both indoors and out), and maybe even capture some night video... I don't know... We're still at the planning/dreaming stage. BTW, if you have any ideas, speak up.

Let's see, what else is new? Oh, we had a funny visitation today... The pedestal on our terracotta birdbath broke, and we were going to epoxy it back together. So we were in and out of the house retrieving the boat glue etc., and in one venture outside we spooked a Coopers Hawk; he must have been 20 feet away as he swooped by. Majestic, but still after our critters. Bummer...

Gotta run,

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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eBirdseed and misc. references

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First of all, here's a quick pic of what appears to be a downy scouting the birdhouse... Not bad...

But most of all, I want to just reflect on 9/11... (Please keep in mind that what follows are strictly my opinions, and not those of eBirdseed.com.)

For reasons that will go unexplained, that day was pretty tough for me... Probably even tougher than for most folks. I think back on it now, and feel exactly as I felt then - full of quiet, controlled rage...

No more words right now...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fall is here. It's sweatshirt weather again. Thank goodness. The leaves will begin to drop. (Though we've been having tree problems all summer long.... The leaf above is a good example of the damage done by some sort of disease or bug. Two of our maple trees took major hits. We'll need to mow the lawn one more time to mulch what's left, though the mower itself is reaching the autumn of its years. Whatever...) Ahhh, Fall... Silence,.. Cool and cold. Read that, "raw soaking quohogging weather". A time to bake bread, brew beer, make clam chowder, and grill real burgers. A time for a warm home with the right food cooking, all seeped in slanted reddish-yellow light and Carole King's "Tapestry". It always amazes me how the tourists will run away from the Cape as soon as September and October come around - those are the best months. Their loss.

As for the birds... We haven't seen an oriole in a while, and the finches are obviously gone. The hummingbirds hold fast and provide almost non-stop entertainment. The usual suspects (blue jays, chickadees, red-wings, grackles) loiter as well. Interestingly, the crows have almost become part of the family. They like their snacks when they like them, and they don't mind protesting when they don't get something. (I gotta tell ya it's weird looking up from your computer and seeing a familiar crow staring at you from the local branch. It's kind of freakish in a Hitchcockian sort of way.)

Anywho... The summer draws down, and no one has ever described it better than Emily Dickinson in poem #1540:

As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away, --
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like perfidy.

A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon.

The dusk drew earlier in,
The morning foreign shone, --
A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
As guest who would be gone.

And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, this is too easy... Set up the the video camera, and with a bit of editing we got the following...

A downy woodpecker (or more likely a family), a grackle, and a chickadee. Interesting to note that the woodpeckers seemed to struggle with the concept of the suet feeder. (At least one landed on the camera/tripod and tried to make a lunch of it. If you listen carefully, you can hear the bird pecking away at the rig.)

Aside from the video above, all seems to go well here on the Cape... The weather is cooling, the orioles are gone, and the hummingbirds are active as ever. At this point it becomes a question of, "What do we want to point our cameras at?" Mrs. CCA got some beautiful shots of Red River Beach today, and they'll be forthcoming. But truth be told, photography has taken on the mundane. Yeah, we can handle (mangle?) still, video, and even audio... But now what? I'll do some underwater vids... But after that?

It's funny really... The very technology that was supposed to open up our creativity has instead exposed our lack thereof, and in the process left boredom... Dang!

Frustrated by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wanted to start this talking about the wonderful early Fall weather... But the flesh is weak. Here is a nice video of some crows chowing down on old pizza. (I swear that one of these days we'll have one of our old "Coffee-Table Discussions", but for now the birds are just too much fun.) Keep an eye open for the great play of sunlight, and the vision of crows descending from heaven, as it were.

Once again, the food was eatable, just not very palatable. (To be completely honest, given the fact that crows eat August road kill, I imagine the corvid's gut is pretty rugged.) Anywho, as the video clearly shows, the birds didn't seem to care.

Onward, and on a completely different topic...

Looks like we got us a new grill!

The old one was almost 10 years old, the burners were disintegrating, and it was just plain tired. Oh, I could have rebuilt it yet again, but that would have cost another $60, and the frame holding the old one together was rusted to the point of being unsafe - so, goodbye. Besides... This one was on sale for about the same price... No brainer.

Details of the build:

* Usual stamped-steel frame with heavy aluminum firebox.

* Usual claim of "No Tools Needed For Assembly!!!" which was shattered by the time I reached Step 2.

* Usual instructions printed in three languages, one of which pretended to be English

* And so it went...

Hopefully,I can finish getting this baby put together by the time Jeopardy! is over, and the wife and I can be cooking pork chops by dark. (I'll post photos of the finished product in an upcoming entry.)

See you by the feeders, grilling like crazy...

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

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eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

First off, the crow...

There are times when the freezer gets packed with stuff that we simply will never eat. You know the culprits - the leftovers that weren't all that good to begin with, the food that was on sale and would have been overpriced at half the cost, the recipes that didn't quite work out. It's not that there's anything actually wrong with the stuff... It's just that it ain't gonna' get eaten. From time to time I clean out a little of the "lesser foods" and give it to the crows. Hence the snapshot above.

About the issue of scratching an MP3 out of a video file... Well here's a good example. But what's the actual process to make it happen? To make it sharable?

Here's a thumbnail sketch of the basic process I use...

1. First record in a digital camera like the Mino. (If you can't record onto a digital cam, record nonetheless, and find a way to convert into a digital format.)
2. Back up your original work and set the backup aside!
3. Use the appropriate software (in my case the FlipVideo software) to export as an AVI file to the proper folder.
4. Import that file into something like Microsoft Movie Maker.
5. Edit as needed and save. Remember, your concern here is audio.
6. Use some sort of converter software to strip out the audio and convert it into MP3. I use "WM Converter" (a free download from ZDNet).
7. Next, get your hands on a quality audio editing program (I use Audacity, another free program this time from the PCWorld download site) and edit your MP3 to suit.
8. To make your audio available to all, upload it onto an audio hosting service. I use HoundBite.

Onward! Talk about serendipity... the other night a screech owl decided to perch nearby. And here are his efforts.

What a blast...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Breaking news! Madison Wisconsin has just made the plastic pink flamingo its official "City Bird"! (Ummm... Maybe it's just me... But don't our elected officials have more important things to focus on?)

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 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)