eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Note: Sorry for the delay. The blog hosting service we use had "issues" that required remedy. Anyway, this post is roughly a week old. Onward...

"Sanctuary" - it's a warm word isn't it? For the last couple of days, I, like many, have been in a sad, sad funk over the tragedy in Arizona. Obviously, this isn't the first time we've been through these sorts of things: I remember when JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and Reagan were shot. All were bad times.

Anyway, in the midst of my funk, I happened to glance out at our birdhouse (right) and saw a downy woodpecker slip into the domicile. No doubt it was simply looking for a roost to escape the winter weather. (I tried to get a picture, but the creature wasn't wasting any time.) And for just a brief few moments, there was a bit of respite, a break from the senselessness. I find that backyard birdwatching is such a subtle pastime - not all-consuming, but there when you need it... Life goes on...

Speaking of life going on... Looks like we may have another storm heading our way. (Look out Cape Cod!) We're looking at Tuesday night through Wednesday night. 'Tis the season (to be miserable.) As always, we hope you are prepared...

Better get this posted...

See you by those feeders!

CapeCodAlan

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

Once again, we've got a lot to cover, so let's get busy...

First up is my Christmas present to you... What follows is an absolutely breathtaking rendition of Ave Maria (I believe this is the Verdi version) by the late Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard.

There's a funny/sad story as to how I happened upon the Carpenters' music... About a year ago I was rummaging through YouTube looking for my demigoddess of music, Ella Fitzgerald, and found a video of her singing with, of all people, Karen Carpenter. "Oh boy!" I thought... "Ella is going to rip that puff piece Karen to shreds..." Not so much. I have never heard a better duet, and never heard Ella in finer form. That brought me to the Ave Maria piece above. If you care at all for superb Christmas music, buy the Carpenters "Christmas Collection" - this really is a remarkable accomplishment, and Karen and Richard truly were/are stunning musical talents. (As extraordinary as Karen Carpenter was as a vocalist, she might well have been a better drummer.)

Now, about that hutch... Well, here she is in all her unfinished glory...

Obviously, the photo doesn't do it justice, but it really is quite nice... The stained glass is hand-cut... The drawers are dovetailed and epoxied together. The doors are all through mortise and tenon... Think of her as an Artisan Style/Shaker work in progress... (Speaking of a funny/sad story, when we were assembling it, the top became "gravitationally challenged" and plunged to the floor taking the bookcase and me with it. I suffered the worst damage but can still type, so no harm no foul. Onward...)

Now here's a teaser... The new streaming video camera is up, and you can't see it (Naw naw, na naw naw!) Let me work out the hinks, and we'll be good to go... At least expect the respectable. (Ultimately, the trick is going to be keeping the cam warm/cool/dry in the great outdoors... Oh goody!)

And with that, Merry Christmas and as always, we'll see you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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)

Not bad, if I do say so myself... I've learned to mess with settings like "Sports" (fast shutter), manual focus, "Portrait", and "Macro". So far, the camera hasn't exploded, so I must be doing something right. On to the words of warnings...

Truth be told, there probably is only one word of warning - "Backup!" Here's what happened...

1. I took the photographs above as usual, and after looking at them on the computer, promptly deleted the ones I really wanted right off the SD chip.
2. As Windows XP doesn't support saving deleted files in the Recycle Bin when those files are wiped off a removable drive, a third-party app was called for. Unfortunately, trying to find a decent (and free) undelete program can be tricky, but I did finally find a winner.
3. Too bad that my machine (not eBirdseed's) blue screened on me not once or twice, but three times within minutes. (For the geeks amongst you, I was getting a STOP 0x7F - most likely a memory stick issue.) That of course demanded an immediate backup, which is no mean feat when the PC keeps crashing.
4. Alrighty then... The story to this point boils down as follows... I couldn't write this post because I couldn't get to the photos I needed because I accidently deleted them. However, I couldn't undelete them because I needed a freeware application that I couldn't use because my system had become unstable. And before anything could go forward, a thorough backup was called for on a system that kept failing.
   Welcome to my world.
5. Ahhh... But this grizzled old tech/engineer had one last trick up his sleeve - take an external house fan, point it at the back of the hobbled computer, and let it cool down those failing memory sticks. And what do you know? It worked.

So all that was left to do was to perform a good backup, install and use the undelete software, edit and embed the images above, and then try to decide what caliber of bullet I was going to use to shatter the faulty memory sticks. Someone ought to sell tickets.

See you by those Daedalean feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Our word search puzzle goes unsolved...

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Onward... About the birds...

Or perhaps more accurately, about this blog post and how I am entering it. For some years now I've dabbled with speech recognition... At long last it seems that Windows Vista and the newest hardware (headset/mic) makes speech recognition almost plausible. I'm not quite up to speed yet, but in the long run this might just be doable and I can truly dictate the various posts. Time will tell... Check out the picture below...

That is basically what our system looks like. The headset is a Plantronics unit, and that seems to work fairly well. I dictate into Notepad, perform the edits, and then copy and paste into the blog software. Like I said, time will tell.

Finally, who can leave this post without the perfunctory turkey picture? They don't call them "turkeys" for nothing!

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Check this out...

Natch that the entire creature should follow...

But there's more to the story... (Ain't there always more to the story???) Here' a pic of the pond where this critter was photographed...

But let's get closer still...

Yup... I believe that one of the two swans in the small red box is the one Mrs. CapeCodAlan photographed, but shot from a satellite umpteen years ago.

It's remarkable... Mute Swans live up to 25+ years, (though there is at least one reputable source that claims that 100+ years are possible) and my guess is that this is the same pair I've known most of my life. Imagine cruising down the road in an old (much pre-owned) 1964 Ford Falcon listening to Bachman Turner Overdrive on the 8-track and then seeing those same birds Lady Gaga years later... Weird.

It's strange really - how some things change and some don't... how fads and lives and loves and friendships come and go... But sitting in the silent periphery of life there remain a few constants. Truth be told, I don't know if the bird above is precisely one of the pair I brushed into the subliminal in the late '70s... Back then I was too busy chasing girls, going to college, working, drinking beer, and trying to keep the hair out of my eyes to really comprehend. Oh, I saw, but grasping was (and is) another story.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Looks like we have yet another camera. This time, it's the Kodak C190 that will suffer the slings and arrows. Let's see... Here's the stuff as it comes out of the box...

Basically, the contents were:

• The camera itself
• Battery charger
• Batteries
• The box showing the C190
• Instructions for the camera and charger
• Soft case
• Strap
• Warranty stuff
• USB cable
• Kodak software

As with many of today's small cameras, it excels using the macro setting...

That's a closeup of a Canadian dime. (It's amazing what 12 MP will do for you.)

As for the more common birding-type photography, my first impression is that a tripod is almost a requirement. Here's a shot of a mourning dove we got using the max 5X optical zoom...

That was taken from about 25' using a tripod. We tried freehand, but the results were poor.

Other gizmos/features include "Smart Capture" (intelligent picture taking), face detection, flash control (nice), and video.

All told, this rig is about what you'd expect out of a $95 deal nowadays. The only downside we can see at this moment is the hinge for the trap door that holds the batteries and the SD RAM card (not included). Let's just say that that hinge doesn't exude robustness. Time will tell...

I doubt that you'll be able to use the C190 to become the next Ansel Adams, but so far it's doing just fine.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

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

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

Deep breath...

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

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

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

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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

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

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

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

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

Signing off, but watchful...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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

I thought we might start this one off with a nice spring photo of a blue jay... This is from way back on May 5th, 2007, and was shot using the Novabird camera. It's fun to go back and look at old images on windy, rainy winter nights like tonight. (Take that, snow!) For some reason, I've never been a fan of the jays... They're really quite beautiful... Just ain't my cup of tea I guess. (Funny how folks take to some birds and not others... I like red-wing blackbirds and crows, but blue jays and robins simply don't gun my motor. To each his own I guess.)

Stop the presses! We just put out some crackers for the crows, and noticed a most unusual behavior... The crows seem to be using a sentry system to streamline and/or safeguard their feeding habits from the ever-increasing threat of seagulls. What follows is a preliminary observation, and perhaps just happenstance, but it certainly bears noting... Here's their routine as best I can tell...

1. They post a lookout by the feeders and the rest fly off, yet remain in "cawing distance". (Unless they use some sort of relay system, which is truly frightening.)
2. When food (like the crackers) becomes available, the sentry calls the others, but holds his position.
3. The "gatherer" crows respond and collect all they can, then fly off with the sentry trailing with nothing, even if that means leaving food behind. Soooo...... What does the sentry get? To me it suggests that in some way, shape, or form, they share as a social unit. Remember that piece we wrote about crow brains, the palliums, and social behavior?

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Well, the much dreaded storm has arrived.

If this post is unduly short, it will be because we're losing power. (The wind is whipping, and we've already had one brown out - oh goody.) Keeping the fingers crossed... Still there is profound beauty in this kind of weather - a "Charles Bronson" sort of strength and loneliness. (Did I just write that? Man, it's late.)

Not quite sure how to introduce the next subject, so I'll just show you a photograph and go from there...

That is the down of a feather as seen through a digital computer microscope. I've been eying these gadgets for years, and all things considered, it was time that the wife and I had one. As we are both collectors, this really is a necessity. We have the Celestron 44302 - a 10X to 150X USB scope with a built in 1.3 MP camera...

All told, the rig is pretty good... The images are crisp (though focusing takes practice). The ability to make WMV movies is impressive. The LED lighting system is adequate... I can easily see using this in conjunction with a beefy laptop in the backyard or in the field for studying things like the feather above, tracks, nests, egg shells, etc.

Better run before I lose this post to the storm...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. was just watching our streaming cam (link below) and saw a coyote run through the back yard... Before I could "Print Screen" the thing he was gone... Arghhh!!!

P.P.S. This is post number 499 for me...

P.P.P.S. The good folks at Bird House Spy Cam have sent me another Hawk Eye camera to test... Right now, I have it connected to an inside TV and the color is stunning! Stay tuned... I'll see if I can't get that puppy streaming in the near future and see what we get...

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:04 AM | 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

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some time now, I've been swearing that I'd actually write one of these posts and not mention birds. (The great theory was to have the occasional "coffee table chat" that would mull social, political, scientific, and entertainment stuff, and not birds, birds, birds each time every time. Ummm, that hasn't worked out so well...)

So let's have another go at it shall we? How about NASA TV? While I was working on one of the machines today, I tuned in to a couple of ISS folk doing their EVAs (Extra Vehicular Activities) and marveled at the process in real time. Here are a couple of screen shots...

In the first picture, you can clearly see the astronaut (sideways) going about his work. In the next, the earth slides by 220 miles below. Hey! Wanna see how an orbit works? (Yeah, I knew you would.) Check out the drawing to the below left.

Not bad, eh? Okay, to understand orbiting, consider the little stick guy standing on his tiny world in the top diagram of this artistic masterpiece. He's just fired a gun (the square box in his hand) skyward and the bullet has obviously arced but fallen victim to gravity. In the next drawing, more ballistic "oomph" made the bullet fare slightly better, but it still fell from ethereal grace. But the last fella... The last stick man used a gun powerful enough to make the bullet go high enough, fast enough, and on the right trajectory such that it keeps falling as it follows the curvature of the tiny world. Of course, there's a balancing act - too fast and too high, and the bullet shoots off into space... too low and too slow, and the projectile comes crashing down as in the first two attempts.

And that's the trick with the shuttle... We need to launch 4,000,000 pounds (2,000 tons) of fuel, vehicle, and payload, and get it up to 17,000 mph to hit that magic 200+ mile mark. If we do that just right and get the angles perfect... Whee! We're in orbit. Of course, the energy required to pull off this stunt is equal to opening 13 Hoover Dams all at once...

On second thought, I think I'll stick with the birds.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

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

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Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

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eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it wasn't pretty, but the eBirdseed.com bird cam is back. Before another word is typed, thanks go out to Shane Croft at PcWinTech.com. I can't speak to all of their software, but I can address Shane's support on a piece of his freeware ("Simple Port Forwarding"...) Outstanding from every angle. No more and no less. Shane, bud, I owe you a beer.

Onward...

So here's the deal about the eBirdseed.com cam... For the life of me I couldn't get the puppy to work. I spent seven days and nine pages of notes trying to get the bugger to stream so that you could see it... Nope. Finally, I ran across Shane, and all systems are go. Add to that a little wood butchery on the house and the cable is tucked in nice and cozy...

Now the problems swirl around stuff like focus, location, and day/night (check out the possum below!)

Yeah, aside from his white face, he's pretty much indistinguishable... But just wait till I get the camera located properly. This is going to be cool.

Lots of work to do, so I'll see you on the flip side 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 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just never can tell what you'll find when you tune in here aye? Check out the photo below...

So what in the name of Sam Hill is that, and what does it have to do with birds??? The picture above is that of my arm, shot by our new "Web cam to be". ( Not to worry, I'll get that rascal streaming yet!) As for the arm, why is that important and what does it have to do with IV needles? Here's the deal. One of my closest friends has serious health issues, and frequently has to go through a barrage of blood tests. While that is plenty uncomfortable under the best of circumstances, my friend's veins aren't exactly the most pronounced. Bluntly put, the nurses often have to go "jabbing" to find the vein - a dozen times isn't uncommon... Yeah...

So anyway... (Uncurl the toes...) Why not take something as simple as a little bird cam with infrared capability (like ours) and use it to illustrate the warm blood in the veins in a dimly lit room? The arm could be strapped down, the veins "mapped" using a non-toxic "Magic Marker" on the surface of the skin, and the blood could be drawn without jabbing.

Ok then... That's enough for this post!

See you by the feeders and I'll have my arms folded,

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 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

Once again, another busy day. Set up the Olympus on a tripod on the kitchen counter and went about the usual. And sure enough when I was working on the scullery computer (more about that in a minute) I turned, and there she was, a female ruby throat frozen in time right there 18" away from the lens. I mean we're talking perfect; it was as if the creature was caught in stop action in mid air. Man oh man alive... I focused that camera and... the batteries died. It went lights out. Arghhh!!! All kidding aside, there's a reason why "picture boxes" and I don't get along. In a sentence, they're stupid and digitally malevolent. There I said it. But anywho, here are a couple of nice hummingbird shots that did survive.

And not to be outdone, here's a crow yelling...

So there you go... And don't be too surprised if future illustrations take on that distinct "feel" of that old non-digital camera manufacturer, Crayola. Harrumph! Now, on to more info about our real-time bird cam.

When last we visited our fussy network-based bird cam, all seemed okey dokey. Ah ha! You fell for it just as I did. Well, it turns out that simply unplugging one of the lines coming off the router makes the entire network hold its breath and stamp its little digital feet. (I know, I know, I know... What we did shouldn't have caused the thing to crash, but it did crash... it crashed faster than an old Russian-built jetliner.) Whatever... The web cam is back up, and more popular than ever. Be sure to check it out - the hummers are going nuts over here!

Gotta run... I'll 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 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, our bird cam is back up. Looks like we had a busted router and maybe a fried network interface card. Anywho... To give some sense of the mess when even a small network goes bananas, here's a shot of the back of just part of our system. (Remember, this is just my own personal network, and it has no connection with the eBirdseed configuration, which is fine.)

So, be sure to check out our rejuvenated eBirdseed.com bird cam

Onward... You didn't think this old engineer would leave today without noting what happened 40 years ago - Apollo 11. The image below is of yours truly sitting by the TV watching the greatest achievement in human history in real time.

Think about that for a moment... The moon shot made the Great Pyramid look trivial. A bunch of engineers living the American mantras of hard work and competition actually put men on the moon four decades ago. The on-board computer system that they used? Well, it had 1/16th the computing power of a $50 calculator available from Staples today. And here's some cool info about the Saturn V rocket that got the men to the moon...

• At liftoff, the rocket weighed over 3,000 tons.
• Ever wonder how tall the vehicle was? Go to your local skyscraper and take the elevator to the 35th floor, get out, go to a window and look down. That's how tall that thing was.
• The rocket consisted of three stages...
• The first stage took the astronauts from zero mph to roughly 6,000 mph in two minutes.
• The second stage accelerated from 6,000 mph to 14,000 mph in six minutes.
• The last stage would drive the vehicle up to 17,000 mph in eight minutes.
• When all was said and done, the craft boogied towards the moon at a cool 25,000 mph.

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 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi all,

Yup, they're back! The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have arrived - the wife saw one today. While the shot above is from last year, you'll be getting some fresh pictures in the near future. Nothing says "Spring" like a Ruby-throated! Be sure to keep an eye on the eBirdseed.com bird cam - it's trained right on the hummer feeders.

Hey now! Tweet, tweet! eBirdseed Twitters... (If you're not familiar with social networking, take a look here.) I'll warn you right up front that I'm not your typical tweeter... I don't ask stuff like "Who's your favorite Star Trek character?" Nope, I tend to fall along the lines of silence or at best, "Oh, a Red-tail just swooped through the backyard." Anyway, you can access Twitter using the "Share" button below. All you really need is an account, and then "follow" CapeCodAlan.

What else is new? Well... It turns out that our little Flip Video camera has a decent mic in it, so it looks like I'm going to have to start building a bird audio library. First I'll have to find a way to strip the audio out of the video and then edit it, but that should be no prob whatsoever - I live for this stuff.

And speaking of videos... We now have a YouTube account for our vids. All that remains to be done is to wrestle the digital celluloid gremlins into submission, and then force them into some sort of logical order. When all is said and done, it might not be pretty, but at least it will be entertaining. Stay tuned for that one.

Before I go... As promised, here's the finished model of the sailboat "Gypsy".

It's obviously primitive, but the lines are right. If you're going to build anything (from boat to birdhouse), the best advice I can give is build a quick model first. It doesn't take any money, and it takes little time, and in the long run you'll have a more pleasurable experience throughout.

Gotta' run... See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)