eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

First of all, take a look at our new hummingbird feeder relative to the eBirdseed.com streaming cam... Little better ay? (Will look better still when I get around to cleaning the window...)

Now... about making that monopod... In general, a monopod is really just a tripod with one leg. It also makes for a dandy walking stick... (See photo below...)

What project would be complete without one of my hideous, out of scale drawings...

Monopods are very popular with birders for obvious reasons... What follows then, is a rough outline for making such a beast and then a few pics showing the build process so far...

1. Rip a 2 X 4 square such that it's 1.5" X 1.5" and about 5' high... (This will be shortened to fit Mrs. CCA)
2. Round the stick to a 1.5" in dia.
3. Find a way to attach a standard tripod camera attitude mechanism (up/down, left/right,tilt) to the top of the stick cutting the height appropriately
4. Bore a 3/16" hole in the bottom end of the 'pod and screw in a 1/4" X 1" bolt along with a dash of syringe epoxy... Be sure to leave about 1/4" of the bolt shaft sticking out
5. After the epoxy dries, cut the bolt head off and grind the remaining stub to a point -- this will be the pointy end that sticks into the ground
6. To mount the camera attitude mechanism, cut the top assembly off a cheap tripod keeping about 1.25" of the height adjustment shaft... (See photo below)
7. Bore a hole into the top end of the stick just big enough to hold the shortened height adjustment shaft and and some epoxy
8. Next-to last-step: Make a handle up by the non-pointy end out of appropriately placed old boot leathers secured with epoxy and a herringbone stitch or a series of Turk's head knots
9. Finally, just slather on three coats of varnish and call her done -- a great walking stick/monopod ready for action

Soon to be sacrificed tripod...

Square stick as it came off the saw...

'Pod blank readied for rounding...

And that's all for today...

By those hectic feeders...

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First, here's a reminder that the hummingbirds are on their way, and we hope you have your feeder(s) ready. We do...

The photo above is a shot of our public eBirdseed.com live cam... (Looks like I need to clean the window, and reorient the cam so that no indoor light can get between the lens and the glass thus causing bounce back...) Still, a glimpse of a hummingbird is still a glimpse of a hummingbird...

Onward

Below is a neat screen shot of Cornell's livestream...

This Cornell cam (and a very nice one at that) shows a Red-tail (male?) waiting to be relieved of his egg-sitting duties by his mate. It's fascinating to watch the male bring fresh bark and whatnot, and then leave it to the female to fuss with the nest. If I knew more and had the patience, I'd try to catch the actual hatching, but that could be a tall order... Again, the Cornell streaming cam is here...

By the CRT,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, that was the idea -- I'd mount the streaming cam in the old waterproof Ikelite housing, and put that outdoors. Granted, I'd have to dig a trench for the wire, house the wire in a system of PVC pipe for burial, snake the wire through a 4 X 4 mounting post, plumb the whole mess into the homestead... After all that, I'd have no guarantee as to the effect of wild temperature swings and camera performance... Nope... Not gonna happen... Wouldn't be prudent. So, for the moment at least, the link below is the best streaming cam shot I've got...

Beyond the moving picture machine, things around here have been slow bird-wise. (Part of the problem no doubt has to do with all the activity that's going on as we try to repair all the downed-tree damage..) Still, we feed the feathered ones, and they eat. I do however, continue to notice one behavior in the crows that seems to cross at least a couple emotional boundaries -- whether they're frustrated or excited, they ruffle their wing feathers. Is it a single behavior for two sentiments? Am I missing a nuance that separates two different types of movement? Perhaps the birds are incapable of feeling the difference between frustration and excitement... Who knows?

Lastly, here's a neat little trick I learned while building a canoe -- use tire inner tubes as giant rubber bands/clamps for unusual shapes and for joints that want to slide around. Here's that Shaker tall clock being bound together for fitting and eventually gluing and nailing... Pretty clever, no?

Happy Holidays!!!

By the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, the old eBirdseed.com streaming cam isn't looking so hot right now...

Time to make a change... Granted, the window could use some washing, and the sun wasn't cooperating, but still... The cam is focused on a now-vacant hummingbird feeder, and where's the fun in that? No, it's time to get a cam outdoors. The problem of course is to get video 'out there' without destroying it. Here are my concerns:

• I need a good housing that will stand up to a drenching or two (or three... or...) At the same time, it will also have to endure countless blizzards. In that respect, I'm leaning towards my previous 'mailbox solution' -- modifying a standard mailbox and using that as a housing. The problem is that I'm not in the mood for setting up a thermostatically controlled enclosure. On the other hand, I'm not about to sacrifice our Logitech 9000 Pro either.
• The USB extension cable may not be designed for elements -- that would dictate shielding it in PVC pipe and burying it... Yech.
• Then there's always the issue of the mount itself... Do I want to go through the hassle of making a long-lasting mount for a short-lived project?

Onward... About that pesky $195 contest... I'm 99% sure that I know what I want to do, but the problem is that it's insanely simple and at the same time terribly offputting. The person who sets aside the intimidating and deals with the problem can solve in less than one minute. The individual who freaks at things that look scary will walk away disheartened. Probably the best way to handle this is simply to work as a team... You need someone who can solve problems by thinking outside of the box snicker snack...

Next time, the contest... Be ready...

By the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back around my 800th post, I mentioned that I wanted to do something special for the event... I never did. That got me to thinking about other things I've promised along the way and never followed up on. (Yeah, I know... I finished off that last sentence with a preposition... tough.) Anywho, here are two projects that go unresolved: the streaming eBirdseed.com Web cam refinements, and that pesky encryption contest from long ago... One thing at a time...

First, here's a screen shot from our streaming Web cam mid-day.

Not very exciting is it? The original plan was to house the cam in some sort of protective enclosure outside (see the link above), but that sort of fell by the wayside... Maybe it's time to re-visit that idea... The first step is to find the acceptable operating temperatures for the camera (a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000). Bummer that the Logitech manual and site doesn't have that info; I put in a tech request for same. We'll see.

Next up... that nasty old data encryption/decryption contest... Truth be told, it really isn't that nasty, and offers tremendous insight into the ease of data encryption. (Whether or not you know it, you're probably using some form of data encryption as you read this -- your banking, credit cards, and medical records all use this stuff.) Anyway, all it takes to win this is a brief bit of learning and then doggedness... Alright... Your silence (and the silence of those who read two other blogs) concerning this contest has been deafening. So, it's now closed... I need to simplify the contest, and at the same time change the rules and prizes. How about this? I can boil it down to a 30 second solution, change the rules as to who can enter (previous winners will be allowed), and up the ante on the prize. Let me mull it over... But in the meantime, here is the single lump sum prize for that future lone winner...

• Black Oil Sunflower - 10 lb - $24.19
• Cracked Corn - 4 lb - $14.02
• In Shell Peanuts - 6 lb - $28.50
• Large Striped Sunflower - 4 lb - $17.98
• Nyjer - 20 lb - $47.48
• Peanut Pieces - 5 lb - $19.55
• Safflower - 7.5 lb - $22.04
• White Millet - 10 lb - $21.40

Total Retail Value: $195.16 delivered right to your door in the continental U.S. only... (Value may vary with supply.)

Now there's something to ponder...

Tidying up by the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi,

Just a heads up...

This Friday 9/23, (8:00 - 8:30 AM EST) we're going to have the pros (Tree Co. Inc.) come in and take down the tree below.

Unfortunately, because of Hurricane Irene and disease, the tree has to go. But at least you can watch some of the action on our live streaming Webcam, and, I'll (or Mrs. CCA) will try to watch this blog and the eBirdseed Facebook wall for comments.

In the meantime, I've got to clear a path to the tree (move the boat), make a template for chainsaw cut length, and figure out if I really want to try to mill six feet of the trunk itself. (Let's see... 18" in dia. by 6' in length weighs how much?!?)

Bracing myself by the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

First off... No, I didn't physically capture a hummingbird nor did I even try to. But I did try to snag one at our Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam. That's far easier said than done. But check out the pics below... The first reflects utter failure... The creature was right there a fraction of a second before I hit "Print Screen", and then, 'Poof!"... No bird...

The next shot is a little better... Granted, the subject was flying away, but still, I got something...

And finally, an almost respectable image via lightning fingers and dumb luck.

Who knows why this sort of diversion is so much fun... I guess it's probably like fishing -- part skill and part happenstance. It's all too obvious that the results aren't that grand... But once, I'd like to come up with something akin to our 2008 photo contest winner Kathy K...

One can dream...

By the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got a full plate today, so we might just as well take a look at the pic below, and I'll explain as we go along...

Let us see then... By the red letters:

• "A": Last winter, yet another of our mailboxes got popped by a plow. So now I have two. One will become a well-ventilated duplex birdhouse for the shade, and the other will be the overdue outdoor camera housing for the feeders. I can't cool it for the summer, but I can heat it for the fall and winter. Should be interesting.
• "B": That little black ring is a piece of 0.150" spring steel that has been bent into a loop complete with pointy ends. The idea is that it can be used for clamping two mitered boards together for gluing purposes.
• "C": Ah, "cramps". Like the 'pinch clamp' above, cramps are an 'old school' way of clamping a miter from the outside. Just rip a couple of right triangle wood strips with equal 3/4" legs, glue the hypotenuse to each side of the carcase, let the glue dry, and then clamp as shown. (Next time, I'll be careful not to let the cramps get so close to each other.)
• "D": Ever want to really "dial in" a saw -- get a really accurate angle on the blade? Meet "Wixey WR300". How did we live without this sort of calibration device??? Just plunk it on your tool's work surface, turn it on, zero it, and then let its magnet clamp onto the adjacent blade or fence. The LCD shows you the angle between the two. I've already used it to calibrate my table saw and radial arm saw. The band saw, drill press, and joiner are next. While it's jittery and fussy, for $30, this thing is simply a "Must Have" for anyone who has a shop.
• "E": Finally, there's the old standard, "The Complete Woodworker" by Bernard E. Jones. While obviously dated, this tome is superb. If you can pick it up used for a couple of bucks... Go for it -- the skills inside are both timeless and invaluable.

Gotta run,

By the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's see, what have we got here? Well, obviously, first a small rabbit...

No great surprise there. It's halfway between baby and adult... To be completely honest, I hate to look at helpless little things like young rabbits. Just seeing them makes me think of cars, dogs, hawks, coyotes, etc. I know, I know, I know -- it's Nature... But still, I'm uncomfortable being a spectator. What's next? Ah yes, our UStream live streaming cam...

Since I installed this, I've just taken it for granted... I hooked it up to a dedicated HP I rebuilt, and let her go. Oh, I'd check in on it from time to time using another system just to be sure that it was still visible to the world, but that was about it... Today, I took a peek-a-loo and discovered the cam wasn't broadcasting. D'oh! My mistake -- We've had a few brown outs, and I didn't check the system... Long story short... Should you by chance be surfing along and find the stream is down, please feel free to comment any post (I filter all comments) or just send me an email at: capecodalan@ebirdseed.com...

Well, that's all for today...

By the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Guess who's coming to dinner...

...and lunch...

And even doing the Hokey Pokey...

And then we have those who decided to pose for us: first off, a mama cardinal and her sparrow buddy...

Another crow, feeling very full of himself...

Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird:

From our streaming web cam, a crow flying from the crow feeder with a large piece of bread (circled in red):

And last but not least, an insouciant house finch, just admiring the view...

Admiring the view by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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

First... Thought you might enjoy the following screen shot...

Yup... That's from our new, free, streaming Web cam. In case you don't remember, the last one - a small analog unit - fell victim to a local computer problem. (As I've mentioned umpteen times, CapeCodAlan's computers are not on the eBirdseed.com network. No matter what happens to me, all orders on eBirdseed.com are completely secure.) Anywho, the image above is typical for our new rig. Can't wait until Spring and we get the chance to get up close and personal with hummingbirds. Still can't decide whether or not to build/buy an external housing; time may well be a deciding factor.

Onward...

Hey, this is post number 685... Before you know it, we'll have 700 entries (and over 1,000 library photographs, 30,000+ cam visitations, 800+ comments, etc...) So what do we do to celebrate? Let's see... I'm pretty sure that eBirdseed.com has already got the "Lobsters-and-Bunny-Babes-for-CCA-Alaskan-Cruise" covered, so that's off the table... I don't know... How about a contest? A new, and very different contest... Something that you'll not only feel comfortable entering, but also feel comfortable winning...

Time to ponder... Ideas? Bueller?

See you by the feeders,

Me...

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Look carefully and you can see that ominous glaze... Oh goody!

On a completely different note... It's come to my attention that folks aren't crazy about entering contests for fear of giving out their contact info. (Four people that I know of have declined for just that reason.) There isn't too much that I can add beyond the standard eBirdseed.com privacy policy... We live in a strange time of phishing, identity theft, spam, hijackings, Wikileaks, China's hacking of Google, spyware, etc., etc., etc.

My guess is that eBirdseed.com is about as safe as you can get. (Nowadays, even your snail mail and your trash are at risk... Deep sigh...) I'll see what I can do to think up a new type of contest perhaps using the USPS, a land line, or a winning code.

In the mean time, here's a couple shots of storm-shocked birds...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, Merry Christmas to you all! (I know that that salutation may not be politically correct for some, but tough!) Here's the great Nat King Cole... (Did you know that he was an exceptional pianist before he became a vocalist? On the keyboard, Nathanial Adams Coles was comfortable with both jazz and classical music.)

Onward...

As I mentioned in the last post, the trick in getting the new cam outdoors is to keep it dry and warm/cool. Here's what I've got so far...

No, the main shelter is not a Quonset hut, but instead a mailbox. (And no, we do not receive our snail mail in the mailbox on our deck - that one is reserved for small gardening tools.) Anywho, I hope the drawing speaks for itself, but the idea is to bore two holes in a standard mailbox - one at the end which will be sealed by glass for the cam, and the other in the bottom that will allow a jar-mounted light bulb/fan to keep the thing warm/cool. I'm still mulling over the wiring and mounting details, though those don't worry me terribly... The other option is to simply buy an outdoor security camera housing; that too would bring the project in on budget. Hmmm... For a sneak peek of the indoors experimental version, go here to see the live streaming video in action. (Sorry about the commercials - understandably, UStream has to find a way to make money.)

Lastly, there comes those buzz kill turkeys... Jeez Louise, just when you have the backyard just a little tamed, the turkeys discover how to perch on top of the feeder and raid it to oblivion...

Geez... I wonder what's for Christmas dinner???

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. the "Word Search Contest" is now closed... Harry, we'll think of something... More on that later...

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let this be a simple reminder for everyone who doesn't live on the moon... Winter is coming, and you should be prepared. For those on the east coast, get ready for a Sunday/Monday blow that probably won't happen. (See: Nor'easter Threat? Doubtful...For Most.) Still, a monster like the one below is just a "matter of time" away...

So in keeping with our tradition of keeping you updated on the preparations for the possible hurricane, twister, dam break, blizzard, terrorist attack, etc., here are three links you really should check out: Ready.gov, the Ready.gov kit, and our old faithful - the Cape Cod Emergency Preparedness Handbook. (And while you're at it, it might be wise to lay in a little extra for the birds just in case. We vacuum pack some just to keep it fresh and at the ready.)

Let's see... What else? The birds have been steadily active, though skittish. We're not sure what that's about, but it could be the weather... The word search contest is wrapping up - better hurry! ... Oh! We ordered the new Logitech 9000 web cam (and 32' active USB extension cable) today and should have it by Monday. Expect almost relentless torment in the form of video and geek updates. Seriously, if I can get this thing working the way I think I can, you're going to be blown away.

That should just about do it for now...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last time we talked, I had just brought down our "old faithful" streaming backyard webcam... Increased security measurements on my end (not eBirdseed.com's) unfortunately required that I take the poor thing offline. So now what?

Well... Glad you asked! For some time now, I've been talking about bringing this vid down, and starting anew. And here we are... Before we get started, a word about major projects in general (let alone establishing a new live video feed 24X7...) Take it from a well-tempered engineer and boatbuilder - look at the big picture first and then dwell down into the details while at the same time not losing sight of the persnickety gotcha's that crop up along the way. That being said, I like to hand-draw a rough outline just as a starting point...

That doesn't look so bad... The signal comes off the camera, passes through a buried "active" USB cable (to bust the 16' limitation), is absorbed by the kitchen PC, which then passes it on via our network to the router and ultimately our cable modem and the fog of the Web. What could go wrong? The next thing you know, you'll be watching our backyard birds live. Anywho, that's the "Big Picture", and it seems basically sound right now. But... There are other considerations... Here are the preliminaries without getting too tangled in the "persnicketies":

• Cost...
• What equipment will be required? (The new stuff is truly remarkable!)
• How to bury a cable...
• And then there's the matter of wind rain and snow...
• The stream should have some degree of mobility...
• And finally who will we use to host this puppy?

'Til then, see you by the feeders Cecil B...

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Did I ever tell you about our word search contest???

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They say a picture tells a thousand words. The next two probably say more.

You probably can't read the number in the lower Camstreams shot, but it shows that our little live cam had 29,260 views in its 2+ year lifespan. There was a lot of innocent, free fun there. But no more. Last week, CapeCodAlan (not eBirdseed.com) got slammed with some sort of email virus or worm. To make an excruciatingly long story short, all my email contacts were spammed and my Internet connectivity was cooked. (The fact that my ISP, Comcast crashed, at the same time may or may not have played a role in this.) As a result, I've had to torque up my AV and firewall settings to new heights which unfortunately croaks the cam. Deep sigh... I really don't know what to say about this... How do you speak to the subject of gutless weasels who raid other people's mailboxes... who have no more professional acumen than to pilfer innocents' IDs. Sad, sad, sad...

But life goes on... Here's is the top of the hutch as it stands now. (The clamps and sticks are securing the quarter-round molding to the upper inner back of the carcase while the glue dries...)

And then there's the infamous mailbox birdhouse(s). Finally, rest assured that another (and better) streaming cam will soon be coming to a blog near you. :)

See you by the resilient feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. I'm telling you, there's a contest just waiting for a winner...

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, now it's just a matter of patience... Take a look at the photo below. What's missing?

A hummingbird - that's what missing! We've seen them, but we haven't seen them on the cam. Bummer. Still, it's fun to keep an eye out.

And speaking of the cam, we lost it for the better part of 24 hours yesterday. We had a very brief blackout (one second) that pretty much zapped the electronics that drive the cam. Ultimately, I had to unplug everything and simply just let the system sit. You know, for a digital system, these things can be fussy. My hunch is that the Dazzle (an analog to USB converter) got bent out of shape and needed to cool down. I'm ashamed to admit that the system that runs our live bird camera isn't on a UPS, though one of the computers on my network (not eBirdseed's) crashed, and it was on a UPS... So there you go. Ultimately, CapeCodAlan and Mrs. CapeCodAlan are going to have to look at redesigning our entire computer room, network, UPS, and installing an automatic standby generator system... Oh goody.

See you by those expensive and time-consuming computers,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

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

This was going to be the post to end all posts... The Big 500th... For reasons unspoken we'll tone it down this time and "get 'em the next time."

As the pic below shows, Cape Cod got its clock cleaned from the blizzard... (Even our streaming cam took a hit.)

But that's not to say that the event took away all the beauty...

In general, the birds were ravenous, and we did our best to keep them fed. We especially kept an eye on the suet, ground seed, and water. Though it's hard to tell, the birdbath below has a wire running up to a heater that would eventually melt away all that snow...

Onward...

Just wanted to touch on some movies that I think (as if my opinion matters yak spit) that might be appropriate for the holidays. I'm not sure the minimum age range, but the IMDB ratings will probably be an OK guide. Nothing listed below goes beyond "PG". So here we go in no particular order...

• "Raising Arizona": Early Nick Cage and Holly Hunter in obtuse family story... Also the Coen Brothers in full stride.
• "Monsters Inc.": Proof that a modern animation piece can still tell a good yarn.
• "Edward Scissorhands": Fantastic fairy tale and love story...
• "The Best Years of Our Lives": Timely given Iraq and Afghanistan...
• "Tremors": Stupid fun monster vehicle...
• "Secondhand Lions": This one is a keeper... Robert Duvall and Michael Caine at their best... Of all the movies ever made, this is one of the only ones that will be cherished by young and old, male and female, critic and apathetic...

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

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eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Ya know, there comes a time when insanity reigns supreme... When the soul is a three-pound bag and the obligations weigh at least five pounds. Today is one of those days. At this point, I've got so much to do that I know I'm forgetting some of it, and am grateful for the lapse in memory. (At least, if I had a dog, I could take solace in the fact that he's getting enough cheese.) So there is the photo above. Obviously, it's just a screen shot. But it's a great screen shot. I think it's a flicker...

As I pound away at this stupid keyboard, I can at least glance over and watch a bird or two. Today, I spied blue jays, chickadees, tufted titmice, downys, a flicker (above), crows, and a cardinal. (Wait... I just gotta include the female cardinal shot... It is so cool!)

As the saying goes... "Maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's the time of Man..." I don't know, but a little bit of birds is a good tonic right about now. Obviously, you can fall back to your own feeders, or use our link below and watch ours. Whatever... Hang in there... The holidays will peak and then there will be more peaceful birding. Thank God.

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 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, this is post #497. (Just figured I'd keep you updated...)

Let's see... First, our Backyard Night Fishing got a hit last night. The new cam is working like a champ, and we got a possum.

Not bad. Just a few minutes ago, a herd of turkeys rumbled through...

Coolness exemplified I'd say.

But such is the effect that technology is having on birding. Have you seen the new $20 - $30 iPhone app, "iBird"? (Hat tip to California Kathryn!) For both at home and in the field, this is the ideal fingertip reference source. Neato keeno, though I'll keep my "Smithsonian Handbook" thank you very much.

Let's see, what else is going on? Not too much really. I'm trying to finish up a cherry hutch for the wife... I've been promising completion for years, and this season it will be done. It doesn't help that this is a brute of a piece, and structurally it has to be bulletproof while at the same time it has to be visibly elegant. Oh goody... I'm about half done with the worst decisions behind me. Now it's just a matter of...

WAIT! WHOA! What was that?!? I always keep the streaming cam open in a re-sized window so I can keep an eye on the action, and something just ran by. I don't think it was the shuffling trot of a raccoon, and it certainly didn't look like a dog or cat. It might have been a fox, though it had sort of a galloping gait. Maybe Cape Cod is being overrun with by Eohippi... I mean jeez... We've got so many Coelacanth flopping around here that we have to sweep them off the deck with a broom! OK, seriously, something did run by the cam, and I can't ID it... You really should tune in to our web cam and watch the show... It's a ton of fun...

Watson, by the feeders! Great Scott!

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 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was talking with Richard at Birdhouse Spy Cam in West Linn, OR, and he mentioned that he was still feeding the Anna's Hummingbirds.

What else? Welllllll... Now that our streaming bird cam is back up and running, the old "Backyard Night Fishing" is once again a going concern.

So far tonight I've got zip, but you just never know. I can't stress enough the fun I get out of watching the feeders in the darkness...

See you in the cold and great unknown,

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 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, our eBirdseed.com bird cam is back in the wilds again with a few new wrinkles. (If you're not familiar with the project, here is a good place to start looking at the design.) Simply, we have a new video camera, and a new way of sneaking it out to the great outdoors.

First, we didn't epoxy the wires to the floor. (The shot below speaks volumes.)

Basically the image is that of a blue network cable epoxied in place as is the first cam cable beside it - bad ideas both. Once epoxied, never removed. But the left-most cable is wrapped in hot-water pipe foam insulation and rammed into a hole that provides access to the computer above. Now that is a neat solution. The next problem involved getting the camera outside in such a way that I could get it back in without tearing the house apart. In the first cam install, I literally bored a hole through the side of the house, ran the cable, and epoxied the thing in place - secure, but forever. This time, I shoved the rig out a basement window and locked the window shut with a "C" clamp and more of the insulation.

Note in the pic above how much pipe insulation was used as padding to protect the wire.

Finally, we bought one of those plastic totes to store the extra skein of attached but unextended cable and stuffed it under the deck. The less line exposed to the weather and the gremlins, the better!

Well now, that was boring! But there is a fun (albeit creepy) side to this adventure. At one point, I was fussing on the work bench by one of the cellar windows and caught something out of the corner of my eye... Sure enough, there was one of them big ol' gobblers just staring in wondering what I was doing. He seemed like he was just a pane of glass away. I wish I had a camera at the time. Later, as I worked on the window above, three more of the feathered critics gathered and silently leered... Very disconcerting in a Hitchcock sort of way.

See you by the feeders if I can summon the courage,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, it's taken some time, but the eBirdseed.com streaming cam project might just be making a comeback. Richard at Birdhouse Spy Cam was nice enough to replace our malfunctioning Hawk Eye bird camera with a new one. It took a bit of fussing (at first the new cam wanted to only take snapshots every 5 to 10 seconds), but I think we're up and running again. Here's a screen shot followed by a quick video I took using the Mino to record the new streaming wonder in action. (Obviously, a video of a video is going to lack quality, but if nothing else, it at least proves that we're rolling again, and that we have an enormous cat to boot!)

Now all I have to do is find a way to route the video out of the house to the birds and at the same time be able to pull it back in to avoid severe Cape Cod storms and we're good to go.

And speaking of storms, now is a good time to once again remind Cape Codders and non-Cape Codders alike about disaster preparedness... It's very simple... Sit down with family and friends and read this link and follow its advice regardless of where you live, or paint a bull's eye on your chest. (Ok, so that was a little harsh, but it's a word to the wise nonetheless... Pages six through nine are especially important!)

Aside from the cam rising from the ashes, there's not too much new here. No wait, I take that back... The crows have taken on an unusual behavioral pattern. They simply sit outside the kitchen and complain until we put out something for them. It might be a treat or something they abhor. (Crows do not like lettuce or tomatoes!) Regardless, once they've gotten "theirs", even a tiny portion of "theirs", they calm down. Strange. Remember that post about crow brains, palliums, and self- and social-awareness?

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 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy holidays all. Tis the season for gathering and giving thanks for a lot of things... No, wait... Just wait... Look... I'll be honest. I've got a number of friends who are hard up against it. Tough stuff... Really tough stuff. Health issues... Job issues... Entire career, businesses, and long-term family security issues. I'd be a hypocrite to smarm "Happy Holidays" and then skip down "Happy Lane" wearing my rose-colored glasses... About the best I can say is take care and thoughts and prayers are with you.

Onward...

Welllll... The never-ending saga of the eBirdseed cam rolls on. Last time you tuned in, the streaming video was log-jammed because of a busted wireless network. No more...

That's right, I bored a hole down through the kitchen floor, and hard-wired the sucker right into the network. Hades hath no fury like an engineer/amateur boatbuilder scorned. (Note the other cable coming up through the white glob. That's the video from the outside... Reminder to self - don't epoxy a cable in place unless you really, really have no intention of removing it later.) Anywho, right now the network is fine, and only the cam itself remains "balkative". Not to worry... I'll get the whole shebang working again properly, or my name isn't Nathan Arizona! In the mean time, my $.02 concerning home networks - hard wire the puppies. Over umpteen years, I've burnt through three wireless routers, suffered countless hours of network down time, and in general have come to understand the wisdom of my old IT gurus - hard-wire.

There's got to be a bird around here somewhere! Arghhh!

Ah... That's better... Just a couple of finches. (Gold and House?) Ommm...

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 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm making progress on the eBirdseed.com outdoor bird cam. (See link below.) Basically, the wireless doo-hickey (router) that receives the video signal and networking info from the streaming cam computer went belly up. (Routers are notorious for their propensity to turn turtle. Just consider yesterday's air traffic debacle.) To get a better sense of our issue, see the Oct 16, 2009 "Nor' Easter, and T-Shooting a Cam" and check out the diagram below:

Ya' see that "Wireless Signal" and that "Wireless Router" in the snap above? Well, they ain't doing the "Wireless Rumba" with any of our computers anymore. Sooo... To borrow from Felix Unger, "Sew Buttons!" I'll hard wire the reprobate signal right into the network. Take that you "Wireless Weasel". (I'm sorry that I drone on about this technical stuff as much as I do, but the fact is that people love these bird cams, and it's important to keep folks in the loop.)

As for the summer(s) past... There are times when it's fun to just roam through the photo library and see what jumps out. How about this...

For the life of me, I have no idea how I missed that photograph along the way... Obviously, it's a downy and a goldfinch, but look at the brown on the back of the finch... Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know... It's all moot - the birds are long gone. What's the difference? Quite frankly, I don't know what the big deal is. It's just the silly fun of discovery, that's all - kind of like fixing a network.

What else? Oh! If you don't read the online Science Daily magazine, you might want to check it out. here's a great piece on a museum butterfly house, and another on creating a butterfly garden. (And yes, SD has a whole section on birds.) Very cool...

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 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First, here's another quick screen shot of a turkey at ground level. (Forgive the blurriness... We're expecting the remnants of tropical storm Ida, and I placed a glass jar over the cam.)

And in order to truly automate the screen shots of a streaming video (I don't have frame-grabber software), I jury rigged our NovaBird motion-triggered camera such that it stared at a fluttering ribbon buffeted by a fan. (The ribbon curves gently in the bottom left of the closest monitor.)

For the life of me, I don't know why this kind of bird observation and photography guns my motor, but it does. There's something about the "remote", yet at the same being in the "middle-of the-action" nature of it. I guess that it's just one of those things that a person does for the good of the inner being...

Aside from the turkeys and the crows, there wasn't much happening today. (Ya know, those turkeys really are bullies. It seems that they don't hesitate to charge anything that they perceive as being a threat - squirrels, crows, big critter or small... Thankfully, I've found the secret anti-turkey weapon - the menacing, descending-from-the-clouds comfy deck-chair cushion. Oooh... Scary!)

Lastly, as mentioned before, we're working our way through the shards of Ida. Probably will be raining by morning. Looks like coastal Virginia took a pretty tough hit... Thoughts are with you...

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

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eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Let's start off with big ol' Tom Turkey...

Beautiful creatures... they truly are. But note the toes and claws - not things to be taken lightly. This one by the way is just one of a rafter of seven that visit us almost on a daily basis. (Did you know that Ben Franklin preferred the turkey over the eagle as our national bird? Here is a link to a fascinating letter Franklin wrote to his daughter in 1784 arguing his case. The only input I might add is that a person doesn't have to be dressed in red to be attacked by one of these monsters.)

The next bit of business is a particularly silly USB experiment... Mrs. CCA and I got to wondering why the max USB cable length was only apx. 16 feet. (I'd looked at a ton of Web sites and got conflicting info. The issue seemed to be that of signal delay vs. signal deterioration. We figured that if we could get our cheap but colorful USB cam out back by the feeders, well then we'd really be "cammed up and streamin' large". After all, we could live with delay as long as the signal quality didn't suffer.) Sooo... We bought five sixteen footers and hooked them all together for a total of 80 feet.

(Why is it that you just know that this ain't going to happen?) And not happen it did. The computer wouldn't even boot. My guess is that the added resistivity of all those cables flummoxed the USB port, which in turn yacked at the initial hardware portion of the PC's boot sequence. We unplugged the mess and hooked it back to the way it was with the single short cable and all was well again... Sigh... And that leads us to the screen shot of the two cams below...

The live streaming puppy on the left is our eBirdseed.com bird cam. The one on the right is our front lawn USB cam. (If only we could have gotten the latter out back and outdoors... Dang!) Anywho, it's late now, and those cameras offer strange company. (Ok, so the USB rascal ain't exactly enthralling in the PM with the shade down and a motionless note.) But the one on the left is ghostly in its camaraderie. It's almost as if a creature will come hulking out of the woods in the background. Did you ever see the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"?

Hmmm... That's enough for tonight...

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 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It struck me the other day that those new to backyard birding and this blog might not be familiar with our two seed charts... These charts can help you decide what feed goes with what critter. Well, here's the first and second of the two.

Onward...

Now about that pesky bird cam... From the technical/electronic/computer/Web side of things, the bugger is working like a champ. Trying to keep it dry on the other hand has become a "Kludge Extraordinaire". The weather simply will not cooperate...

Yesterday, in a fit of "git 'er done!" I decided to simply embed the cam in a clear plastic tube and put that out in the wilds. One end was sealed, and the other sheltered the camera all the while giving the gadget all the light it could possibly want. Using the picture below and a little imagination, you can probably see the game plan. (Note that I've included the little Cobra USB video cam just to provide some perspective, and maybe even give a hint as to a future project.)

Unfortunately, the game plan went belly up because the plastic tube won't hold the requisite dab of epoxy needed to hold the current cam in place. So much for the brilliant but doomed "Git 'Er Done!". (Time for the "Acme Son of Git 'Er Done Kit!" I didn't watch all those cartoons for nothing...) So for the moment, the cam continues to be a fair-weather friend; and if you tune in and see darkness, that probably means that it's raining here on Cape Cod.

Onward yet again...

Stumbled across an absolute killer kitchen concoction the other day - this one involving pork tenderloin... Here's how to make it happen...

1. Get all the appropriate cooking gear... Crock pot, cooking thermometer, blah, blah, blah...
2. Buy a quality one pound pork tenderloin in a heavy air-tight bag. We use "Swift Premium All Natural". Also, pick up a large potato, a white onion, some carrots, and celery. Finally, snag a packet of "Crockery Gourmet Seasoning for Pork" by Superior Touch... And if you have a problem with salt, stop reading now.
3. Freeze the pork for several days.
4. Defrost the meat in the frig. (My theory is that the crystallization of the freezing process causes the pork to tenderize a bit.)
5. Clean work area.
6. Put pork in crock pot with peeled, diced potatoes, seasoning (directions call for two cups of water), and half the onion sliced.
7. Cook until the internal temp of the meat reaches at least 160 degrees F. (The lowest safe temperature for pork.)
8. Finally, dump in the carrots and celery and let simmer until the meat reaches 190 degrees. (Yeah, I know, I'm over-cooking the pork... Far better safe than sorry.)
9. Enjoy as part "meat and veggies dish" and part stew. And the next day, it only gets better.

Gotta' run... 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 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

First, here's a video we just made of grackles doing their very best trying to re-create Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". This is an unusually long video (apx. 10 minutes) and the camera gets shifted a bit in the process, but IMHO worth the view. Note how even the crows complain because they can't get to their standard buffet tray. Good to see at one point where "Don" the squirrel sends them scattering... I'm pretty sure red-wings are in the mob somewhere, not that that really helps any...

I don't know about you, but that just gives me the creeps. It also makes me worry about birdseed consumption and the grackles scaring away other birds. Not too much to be done I guess. Besides, with that kind of food source, it's only a matter of time before a hawk takes care of the problem for us. And on another front, we have the outdoor streaming cam hanging tough for 35 hours plus...

That's not bad considering that I'm streaming off an old tired AMD machine and that the video server service (CamStreams) often gets hammered... I guess the next hurdle will be to build a water-tight enclosure that will meet the following requirements:

• protect the camera
• be truly weather-proof under all conditions here on stormy Cape Cod
• be optically perfect in normal weather, and acceptable in inclement weather
• not diminish the light reaching the lens any more than necessary

I gotta tell you... Part of me wants to go with one of those water-proof camera bags, and the other part wants to build a shelter from scratch - something that would be more or less open yet still be buttoned up should things turn ugly... Hmmm...

I'll be mulling this stuff over 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 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yup, we got clocked pretty good with a storm over the last couple days. Lots of wind and lots of rain... Our little streaming cam got knocked for a loop. While I kept the video camera itself dry under a plastic bag, the rest of the system pretty much got obliterated. Between the outdoor cable being soaked and the router suffering umpteen brown outs, about the best our setup could do was provide a pure white feed. What to do? How to troubleshoot? Well... First let's back up and look at the rig...

That is how we've got the beast configured... Step by step, let's see if we can't make sense of the whole thing and find the problem...

1. First, the web signal comes off the street from the "Web Cloud" on the left to the cable modem and on to the router which in turn hands it off to the "main PC" via a hard wire... So far, so good... We've got web connectivity at that PC. (Remember, when you broadcast a cam stream, you're basically "offering it up" to a broadcaster like CamStreams. If you have low-level web functionality problems, the broadcaster will never be able to reach your stream. Period.)
2. But the router does more then just "re-route" the signal back to the main PC... It broadcasts it to all the other machines on the network via the airwaves. That was working too, since the other computers were "internet happy" including the one handling the webcam.
3. So what's left? Well, a few things... Maybe the converter that massaged the analog signal coming off the video into a good ol' digital USB was kerflooky... Maybe the cam itself had turned turtle... Maybe the CamStreams broadcasters were having a bad day... Maybe the settings used to hand off the signal to CamStreams (port forwarding) were kattywumpus... How to tell??? Uncle Fester, it's really just a matter of a process of elimination...
4. I more or less ruled out the converter because it seems to be a sturdy piece of innocuous hardware.
5. Could it be that the camera itself had taken leave of this earth? Nope. I hooked it up to a regular TV and it held its own.
6. Other folks were broadcasting on CamStreams, so that wasn't an issue.
7. If the port forwarding was in a backlash, I couldn't send anything over the net... And yet I was - though it was a nice white signal.

But that's the point of this post... If you really want a web site or a blog with a cam (or whatever), just do it! Sure there will be hurdles, but so long as you have a backup of all your data, the world won't end. It might grow mighty irksome for a time, but it won't end... What's that? Have a USB cam? Look here. You only want sound? Look here? Want instruction on web photography? Look here...

The truth is that no one can give you micro-step by micro-step solutions, and these can only be starting points... But if you're prepared, stop sitting on your hands and jump right in... Nor' Easter or not!

Very proactive 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 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sorry to keep harping on this subject, but it is a fascinating one, and has reaped some remarkable benefits even at this early stage of the project life. (The first night the cam was up, we caught a possum in our yard... I haven't seen one of those in a long time.)

Maybe this is a good time to discuss more of the technical minutia, but this time in reverse. (Figures...)

• Let's start with the matter of the end result.

  

  Now that's not bad. (My "Print Screen" was blurred by the creature's rapid movement.) As for the gray scale, I was hoping for more color, but I can live with it. I'll need to fuss with the focus, but even at this preliminary stage, I can tell that I'm looking at a female downy. I got to watch her eat and fly... Very cool for a simple guy. Back when I spent a decade in a cubicle, that sort of real-time imagery from my very own back yard would have been very comforting indeed. If you want a better picture quality, the hardware is out there, but it leaps out of the $100 - $200 range fast.

• Backing away from the lens, right now I've simply got the cam on a tripod, and that no doubt ain't making the birds happy happy joy joy.

  

  I guess my long-term goal is to take out one of the trees in the background of the picture on the left, cut it to about six feet in length, and mount it on a plywood base. I could use that as a sort of natural, non-threatening, portable camera stand.

• Moving even further back in this scheme was the issue of port forwarding. I spoke to that briefly in the last post, but here is a bit more detail... In order to stream a video signal onto the Web, you have to offer up that signal to a dedicated service (we use CamStreams) and of course that service needs to know where the signal is coming from. As our vid was coming through a router which keeps track of our network gadgets (the geek phrase is "IP addresses"), we had to find some way to uniformly hand over our signal to CamStreams. That uniform hand off is known as port forwarding and basically lets our camera "yell" at CamStreams in just the perfect way so that CamStreams can relate.
• Unraveling the plan yet more... If you choose to go the route of an analog camera (which I did), how do you make it create a digital signal that a computer can understand in the first place? Well, you buy a thing-a-ma-bob that does the conversion. But you have to be careful to buy the right thing-a-ma-bob for your camera. (USB cams basically have the converter thing-a-ma-bob built right in. The problem with USB devices is that they suffer from a very limited cable range - something on the order of 20'. Our analog camera will handle up to 1,000', which leads us to the great summary.)

I'll be honest... This is not the easiest of projects, even with a USB cam (let alone my analog rig). It takes time, research, lots of notes, and the expectation that there will be hurdles. (I didn't mention static IP, fussy AV, or firewall exceptions to name just a few.) But if you're the kind of technically-adequate person who can set a goal, and then move towards that goal in a systematic fashion, this is completely "doable".

Maybe see you by the feeders Cecil B...

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 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

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eBirdseed.com bird cam

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