Now... About those orioles! Is that a cool bird or what? (We looked at these guys back in June, 2007...) Other stuff about the creatures...

• They're back from their winter in Mexico, and Central/South America... That can be a 2,000+ mile jaunt. Not bad for a little bird.
• The Baltimore's distinctive "peter, peter, peter, peter" song adds to the backyard racket.
• We usually plan on hosting the orioles from early May through late August/early September.
• While they do like oranges and grape jelly, they don't like orange marmalade, (go figure).
• For those of you in the eastern part of N. America with an interest in photography, these birds typically remain quite steady in front of a camera... (If only the hummingbirds were so calm...) And if you're looking for an excuse to buy a decent camera with your tax rebate check, birds like the Spring and Summer Oriole fill the bill rather nicely.

Whist on the issue of photography, the oriole pic above is only 1 of 32 the NovaBird remote camera shot today... If all had been functioning properly, we probably would have gotten 300 or more photos. What was the camera's cantankerous behavior a few weeks ago has turned into a complete "no go" today. I finally got around to putting a multimeter on the charger and the battery... The charger was delivering a robust 6.89 VDC, but the "fully charged" battery was producing a pathetic 0.02 VDC - bluntly, the battery is dead. (The camera itself is fine in that if we briefly connect the charger to it, the NovaBird springs to life.) Time for a new battery... Not a problem. In the mean time, you can roam around the eBirdseed.com photo library or check out our webcam below. (Hint... The "Favorite Bird Photos" portion of the photo library has more than a few images that would make for great wallpaper, and it's all free.)

Gotta run,

See you by the feeders, and I'll bring the oranges if you bring the grape jelly,

CapeCodAlan

References

eBirdseed.com Webcam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you new to this blog, understand that we almost always discuss all things birds. From bird brains, to bird feathers parts 1 and 2, to moon-sent ponderings of using genetic engineering to re-populate extinct bird species... Chickadees, owls, and green herons... If it has flapping wings and visits your back yard, odds are that we've already talked about it or will talk about 'em in the near future.

And now, the eBirdseed.com Webcam is up... Maybe it's time for a "bird break"...

Time to throw my hat over the fence (and offer a challenge to you guys)... I hereby declare that I will start running again... I started running in my late 20s, and continued until I was 40. I was never very good at it. My best 5K was around a 9 minute mile as the race results in the pic below shows... That was from the 6/15/96 "Bob McCourt" 5K. I placed 343 out of 569 and 120 out of 161 for my age group...

(But hey, it ain't easy running with an oxygen tent in your backpack!)

Since my last run, eight years have passed, and during that time I took on a new dietary hobby which focused on the four basic food groups: "fried", "salt", "Slim Jim", and "beer". Those are the four basic food groups right? Yeah, I thought so... (Sometime I'll write a post outlining my favorite recipes including "Salted Deep-Fried Slim Jims", "Salt Lick Tartare", and the infamous "Fried St. Louis" - a clever spin-off inspired by "Baked Alaska" and consisting of a can of beer rolled in grease, deep fried, lovingly smothered in salt, and then garnished with sprigs of Slim Jim.) Running hurt like Hades ten years ago... I wonder if it will hurt less now?

Alright... All jokes aside... Time for a change... Change the diet, and go back to running. I'll use the NordicTrack to regain the aerobic and cardiovascular... My goal is to run both the Irish Pub Road Race, and the Brewster Brew Run... If you're even near the Cape, I strongly recommend attending/participating in those events... The people are wonderful. But beware; both are hot, humid, and hilly jaunts.

So that's it... That's my challenge... Anyone care to throw his or her hat over the fence too, and make a public commitment to better physical fitness? Anyone in the Cape area want to train with me?

See you by the feeders, but I warn you that I'll probably be sweaty,

CapeCodAlan

References

eBirdseed.com Webcam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As promised earlier, here's a slightly better diagram of the layout for the eBirdseed webcam. With a little luck, it might lend clarity to the first rough drawing.

Alrighty then, with the illustration out of the way, still something nags... What to do with the cam??? Yes, yes, yes... The hummingbirds are cool indeed. But what else?

• The camera, (like most cameras with small lenses) handles close-ups quite well. Perhaps we should encase it in a waterproof housing and perch it 2" away from our usual feeder. It would take a relay to get the signal back to the PC with the USB 802.11g 54Mbps adapter, but the technology is very doable.
• Then again, as mentioned earlier, a fish cam at night could be cool. What would be really neat is an "inside-the-tank" cam looking out.
• How about a "yard cam" that would focus on all of the back yard?

Ultimately, the challenge for this type of technology isn't the technology itself - it's trying to figure out how to use it. Put another way, if we could place a live-motion camera anywhere we wanted relative to birds, where would we put it? What perspective would you like to see?

Need some feedback here folks... (Else I'm going to use my imagination, and we all know that that ain't pretty...)

Waiting with the clapperboard over by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Interesting to note, that in less than 1 week into this eBirdseed.com cam project, we've had over 1,000 visitors on our CamStreams site. No doubt that more than a few of the camera hits were mine as I was testing the system. But beyond that, it also goes without saying that folks are tuning in...

References

eBirdseed.com Webcam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, if you've been watching our webcam below, you've certainly seen a rather unusual show.

Around sunrise, there were no doubt a bunch of hummingbirds. But then, the display went mysteriously white. After that, you got to see a microwave oven and can of "Pam" cooking spray. Next came the riveting excitement of a digital watch ticking off EST. And finally the webcam was back on line. (Whoa! Time out... Just saw a hummer!) Onward... So what in the name of Phineas J. Whoopee* is going on?!?

Here's the deal... Prior to posting the webcam, I tested the camera extensively. I tested it with different USB cable lengths. I tested it with different focal lengths. (There's another hummer! Dag Nabit they're busy today!) I tested it under various lighting conditions. I even measured the propagation delay of the video signal... All were within the "Cool Envelope". So we rolled the cam out for all to see, and it worked quite well yesterday. Unfortunately, yesterday was overcast and rainy, and that hid a crucial flaw that my testing also failed to uncover - that of the camera's inability to handle brilliant sunshine. Welcome to engineering 101...

Not to worry, we engineers thrive on this sort of "oops". So long as no one gets hurt, and the financial damage is negligible, we tend to think of these little events not as failures, but rather as learning experiences. And what was the solution? Well... I messed with the camera's exposure, contrast, white filter... No luck. So, a quick foray on the Web revealed that the Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks Deluxe really isn't very happy with direct sunlight. Period. That kind of makes sense when you consider that the device probably was designed for gloomy boardrooms, etc. "What's left?" you ask... Umm... Err... Let me just loosen up my collar a bit... You see, we had to reduce the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the camera lens via a system of... Deep sigh... Alright, I put sunglasses on the stupid camera as shown below. There, now you know the truth!

Seriously, over time, we'll experiment with different filters, fix the cabling, find a better way to mount the camera, sharpen the focus, etc., etc., etc. Also, be aware that webcams aren't perfect - there will be the occasional frame drop out, and there might even be a need for a screen refresh now and then. 'Tis the way of the Web. Still, webcams are very neat.

One other thing to consider... CamStreams does provide a chatting feature that would let you guys talk amongst yourselves. Let me know if you want me to enable this.

Gotta run... See you by the feeders... (And remember, we'll be watched over by a camera wearing "Joe Cool" sunglasses...)

CapeCodAlan

* Betcha' didn't know that the man behind the voice of Phineas J. Whoopee was Larry Storch of "F Troop" fame!

References

eBirdseed.com Webcam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yup... Just give the window below a little time, and the Official eBirdseed.com Real-Time Bird Webcam will come to life right before your very eyes.

Configured as is, it should make for a superb Hummingbird Cam during the day. At night, it will probably be turned off... But you just never know... The idea of an Official eBirdseed.com Real-Time Fish Webcam is certainly compelling ain't it? How about a Gas-Fireplace Cam? Anyway, let me know what critters/objects you'd like to see and I'll see if I can make it happen. In any event, we'll use the link below in all future posts to give you access to the eBirdseed.com cam.

But there is a sort of a postscript here... As the title says... "Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be engineers." (Thanks to Willie Nelson et al...)

Technically, this cam shouldn't be up for another week. I just didn't have the cables... Still, Hell hath no fury like an engineer scorned. Now, the cables are patched and taped, and the cam is up. We'll just have to watch where we walk in the kitchen for the next week or two... "Mission Control, all systems are go!" (At some point, the wife is just going to kill me...)

See you by the feeders in the hope that you'll be looking at them too,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed.com photo library

References

eBirdseed.com Webcam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, aside from the "Bird-House War" and Spring blossoms, the debut of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird most assuredly seals the deal - Spring has sprung.

Note, here is the full-size version of this image in our eBirdseed.com photo library. (You can use the link below to access the complete library.) Other great non-eBirdseed.com hummingbird links include HUMMINGBIRD PHOTOGRAPHY, photographs of hummingbirds by Wayne Owen and Wikimedia Commons.

It is refreshing to see these little fellows, and it would be nice to write succinctly and eloquently about them, but I'm afraid Emily Dickinson and others have got me beat. Consider her poem number 1463...

Her 500th poem is beautiful as well...

As a matter of fact, many folks including Dickinson and D.H Lawrence touched upon hummingbirds as did naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter... (Truth be told, work like Project Gutenberg offers rich general and ornithological research in tens of thousands of free books.)

But what of the origins of the word "hummingbird" itself? It just so happens that there's a neat Web site out there called the Online Etymology Dictionary. A quick look on that reveals that the first real usage was in 1637.

"There is a curious bird to see to, called a humming bird, no bigger then a great Beetle." [Thomas Morton, "New English Canaan," 1637]

However, the word "hum" may date back to the early 1300s.

And so it goes... A rambling look at hummingbirds, literature, and etymology...

Things could be worse on a lonely Sunday night...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed.com photo library

References

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We've got a number of items to touch on today, so let's get started...

I know I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating... The birdhouse is proving to be a very desirable domicile. Though the sparrows have clearly taken ownership, other birds (chickadees, downies and even the red belly below) have all tried to oust the sparrows.

Still, the sparrows hold their turf. (It must get a little noisy inside when the woodpecker slams away at the aluminum opening protector.)

Next on the agenda - the upcoming eBirdseed.com Web cam! The setup progress has gone remarkably well, and the camera is now able to stream live video onto the Web like a champ. The only downside is that I need to get a USB cable that will let the camera itself reach the window feeder. That's not a big deal, but we did have to order it, so that's going to take time. But, you do have a choice... Would like to wait for the bird cam proper to come on line? Or would you like me to turn it into a live "Cat Cam"? I could focus it right on Toby's food and water bowl, and you could watch moment by moment as a 15-pound cat munches his way towards the "Big Two-Oh"... Just use the "Comment" button to let me know your thoughts.

And finally, on a related, but unrelated note... As just mentioned, the Web cam setup did go quite well, and the rough drawing in the link above did prove to be technically correct. But it's a shame that the diagram was so poor... Well, it turns out that there is a free software utility called Google SketchUp that can render a much better drawing. (I'll create one for a future post.) Quite simply, SketchUp is a sort of CAD program for both the technical and non-technical. It really is worth a long look...

Getting late...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. May 11th looms... Consider yourself warned.

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)