eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Just a quick post with a live streaming video into Cornell's Hawk Cam... Wow!!!

Well how about that!?! Granted, some of the activities aren't for the squeamish (I believe that's what's left of a pigeon in the foreground), but still, this is pretty neat stuff. Be sure to visit the Cornell links above for all sorts of cool info...

By the monitor...

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

By Location, Birds and Natural History Books (a global reference)

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, I know... I'm packing too much into a single post for the better welfare of human or beast... Tough... Here we go...

First up, a neato video I shot of red-wings and grackle...

This so much reminds me of the sublime poem by Emily Dickinson...

I'll tell you how the Sun rose --
A Ribbon at a time --
The Steeples swam in Amethyst --
The news, like Squirrels, ran --
The Hills untied their Bonnets --
The Bobolinks -- begun --
Then I said softly to myself --
"That must have been the Sun"!
But how he set -- I know not --
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while --
Till when they reached the other side,
A Dominie in Gray --
Put gently up the evening Bars --
And led the flock away --

Anywho... About the birdhouse... 'Tis the time to build those puppies and get them out there... Pictured below is a soon-to-be avian domicile constructed using box (or finger) joints...

It isn't pretty, but it will keep the pin feathers dry... Now is the ideal time to practice some basic joints on some scrap, and slam together a few houses... Before this one is done, I'll add a sloping roof, bore an entry and drainage holes, scuff up inside and out for little claws, and secure to a tree with that big honking cable tie (available at plumbing and electrical supply stores.) And that will be it...

There... Emily and birdhouses in one sitting... I should have worked in some Ella...

By the feeders!

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

By Location, Birds and Natural History Books (a global reference)

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As promised here is the remarkable high-speed Eagle Owl video. Please be patient!!! This video takes time to load... If you're willing to wait, click on the "YouTube" button for a larger size...

{It's important to credit sources whenever possible, but this hasn't been easy... It took some digging, but here is what I've got... I think this is correct, but if there are any errors, someone correct me... Thanks...

Photographer credits: Mark johnson from www.slowmo.co.uk and Andy Bilsborough from Turbary Woods, Owl & Bird of prey Sanctuary. The owl is named "Checkers" and was hand reared from the incubator and trained to fly to the falconers glove from an early age. He was only 6 months old when the footage above was shot. and he flies every day at the sanctuary for visitors.}

And that's it... A stunning snippet... On this one, I'll let the 1,000 frames/sec speak the 1,000 words and then some...

By the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

By Location, Birds and Natural History Books (a global reference)

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:23 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

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

By Location, Birds and Natural History Books (a global reference)

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

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

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

By Location, Birds and Natural History Books (a global reference)

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

It never ceases to amaze us that the orioles come back to our yard annually. Spring after spring, soon after the hummingbirds arrive, we see that first brilliant flash of orange and black, and hear that first clarion call of, "Peter, Peter, cheer, cheer!" When we see and hear that, we know that spring has truly arrived.

And by the time July rolls around, we have whole families of orioles: adults who know where to find the jelly bowl and how to land gracefully in just the right position...

...and the juveniles, who are just trying out their wings, and have not yet completely mastered the art of landing where they want to, or sharing their place at the feeder.

Of course, as you can see the orioles are not the only jelly-lovers. When you can't get pizza or popcorn, why not settle for some grape jelly?

Waiting by the feeders with some peanut butter and bread,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

By Location, Birds and Natural History Books (a global reference)

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, here it is -- the not so new eBirdseed.com Facebook connection...

I'm telling ya', ya' gotta' check this out! Go ahead and "Like" us... Don't worry, we won't clutter your wall...

Let's see... What else? I just checked out our newsletter... If you don't get it, you should. There are all kinds of sales and discounts to be had as well as some interesting birding insights. (Did you know that fireworks can be lethally startling to birds?)

In another vein, I got an interesting email from long-time reader Harry "Gipper" Morris concerning my hummingbird carving... His idea was to simply outline the wing, metacarpals, etc. in wire -- that is to say, skip the fabric entirely. And that may well be a stroke of genius. I'll have to mock up some prototypes, and a lot will probably depend on the wire used and its color, but there's real potential there. Thanks Harry!

Funny how things work out... I intended to write a lot more about birds, (or even about an ancient, horrid sci fi flick -- "The H-Man". But for some reason, my eyes started tearing and burning in a rather extreme fashion. (The only time I've ever had a more severe reaction was when I was swimming in an over-chlorinated swimming pool... Oh well... Nothing that cucumber eye masks can't handle...)

Anywho... At least we can offer up a nice hummingbird video...

By the feeders (if I can still see them),

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Moving on...

The next project will be the tall Shaker clock...

It will have to be 80" to match the height of the hutch. Also, I think I want to make the access door have a glass face which opens into a set of curio shelves... (Thick glass shelves maybe? Internal lighting maybe?) There probably will be a lower, finger-groove drawer which when removed will expose 50 pounds of lead on the clock's bottom as a steadying ballast. Believe it or not, I intend to dovetail the entire carcase together (by hand) using half-blind dovetails. By a quick, rough estimate, that will be 200+ dovetails, or 400+ pins and tails... Not a problem... I'm faster by hand than I am with machine... (I will have to look up the proportions of traditional Shaker dovetails though...)

Now... As for the 'mechanism' I think we want high-tech... (It will make for a great contrast...) Maybe something like this...

This project is right around the corner in that the farmers table is almost done, and I'm already selecting the boards for the clock. Expect another fast build with plenty of updates...

By the feeders...

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

First off, hope you had a pleasant weekend, and as always, most sincere thanks go out to our veterans... Without you, none of this would be possible...

Thought you might enjoy a quick titmouse video...

Please forgive the sound of the car going by... Still, if you listen carefully, you can hear the newborns chirping for "mom" and food. (Ahhh... There must be nothing better than the taste of a raw earthworm in the morning.)

I wish we'd mounted the house a little higher. (You can see/hear the great caution as the parent enters and leaves the nest...) Still, this is our second or third year that we've had birds roosting there, so we must be doing something right...

That's about it for now...

See you by the feeders Cecil B...

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just watched an interesting documentary by Scott Crocker -- "Ghost Bird". Here's the trailer...

As you can tell by the clip, there are several stories woven into one film. Thoughts...

• Technically, it's pretty good... The intro is a bit too long, the sound production is uneven, and the entire piece could have been tightened by about 15 to 30 minutes. But all told this is still great work. While this didn't come out of the Cornell Dept. of Ornithology, it did feature interviews with heavyweights such as David Sibley and Scott Edwards (curator of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology).
• As I see it, the first story is simply that of the bird itself... does it, or does it not still exist? That's a tough question in that some pretty qualified people on both sides of the question are weighing in...
• Interwoven into the question above are the politics (grant money) involved. From small-town officials to the federal government, everyone has a vested interest.
• This is also the story of little America (Brinkley, AR) facing tough times. The purported sighting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been a boon to the local economy just as the 1947 "crash of a UFO" in Roswell has created a rather lucrative cottage industry there.
• Finally, there is the all-too-human narrative of wishful thinking on the part of the guy on the street, the ornithologists, the business folk, and even the viewer... I mean, wouldn't it be cool if there was final irrefutable proof that somehow, this beautiful creature somehow managed to elude humankind's selfish crush?

Bottom line?" Well... This isn't Ken Burns, but it's pretty high-grade stuff and would be enjoyed by all family members... Most heartedly recommended... If you can get the Documentary Channel (or better yet, buy it)!

By the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, here we go... I'm taking on yet one more stupid project that I don't rate - I'm going to try to create a stop-motion video of an Amaryllis coming to bloom. (FWIW, CCA's definition of "stop-motion video" is the collection and splicing together of individual, still photographs of slowly-changing behavior for the purpose of creating a sort of continuous, real-time, high-speed movie of said changes. Think "Gumby" and claymation.) Anywho, here's the poor flora subject:

Already, I've vastly under-guesstimated the growth rate of these elegant stinkin' weeds, and have been forced to move the camera at least twice - a serious 'no-no' in the stop-motion community. So sue me. Also, I've changed my mind concerning the frequency of the still shots. What started out as timed four hour photographs has morphed into a mantra of, "Whenever I dang well get around to it..." (Why is it that I get the feeling that Ray Harryhausen isn't exactly trembling in his boots right now?) The end result will probably be that of an on-again/off-again apparent growth pattern... Don't take it too seriously. At least it will be pretty.

See you by those impatient feeders...

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

Live eBirdseed.com streaming cam

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:58 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...

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:52 AM | 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

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

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

Guess the title pretty much says it all...

It's interesting to note the crow's behavior in the presence of the ominous turkeys - he is clearly miffed. In essence, the crow behaves the same as our cat Toby when he is frustrated - he turns his back on the problem, bristles, and gripes. (Sound familiar?)

As for the jumping turkey... Well, all indications are that turkeys just aren't that bright. While they seem to like bread, and know where it's located, they just can't seem to put two and two together to reach four. I know for a fact that gobblers can easily perch on that open feeder, they just don't have the intellectual horsepower (EQ) to make it happen... I've always known turkeys were idiots from the time I saw a posse of the beasts try to make a running attack on a UPS truck.

I keep telling you... Someone ought to sell tickets...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. I've decided to close the word search contest on my Christmas post... Better get cracking!

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:00 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???

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

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...

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

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

Well Gipper, (to borrow from the Kinks) Ya really got me goin'! Let me back up... Long-time reader Harry "Gipper" Morris and I have been trading comments for some time about the Flip Video and how to get its MP4 files to talk with Windows Movie Maker (WMM) on XP (and Vista) machines. Talk about a hornets' nest! We've got more OS versions, WMM versions, and CODEC versions than we know what to do with. (As a matter of fact, I spoke to this on another blog. Note the "EDIT"s.) So, in a moment of madness, I thought I'd make three versions of the same video starting with the MP4 that came off our new Flip Video. First, the original in MP4 format...

Next comes the same vid in AVI format...

And finally, there is the WMV...

Observations and thoughts...

• First, sorry about the differently sized windows. I'm pretty sure that that was my fault on the YouTube end. Each was handled as 640 X 480 in the conversion process.
• All said and done, they look pretty good, at least to me.
• When it came to file conversion, I didn't mess around. I used a free third-party app named "Any Video Converter 3.0.7". However, I cannot stress too strongly the fact that I've been eyeball deep in PCs since before the day of the original IBM PC. (My first computer had 2K of RAM and the first IBM PC had yet to be invented.) Sooo... If you find the need to use an app to make file conversions, check out the blog link above, preferably with the help of a seasoned hand. Just be careful. If you get into trouble, I'll do what I can, but eBirdseed.com and CapeCodAlan aren't in the software business... At least not yet. And no matter what you do, always have a good backup.
• I was surprised about file sizes... The original three minute MP4 was about 10MB in size. The converted AVI and WMV were roughly double that. Considering that the max free SendSpace is 300MB, and the max free Youtube time is 15 minutes, the limits become rather obvious.
• I hate to say the following, but maybe I'm approaching this all backwards. Perhaps I should focus on finding a replacement application for Microsoft Windows Movie Maker that can handle the native Flip Video MP4 output vs. trying to tweak the vid file into a format that makes WMM happy. (I just hate to leave Microsoft apps!) I'll look into it. (Grumble grumble, grumble...)

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 2:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

First of all, hats off to Harry "Gipper" Morris for winning our latest contest... There were three questions:

• What was the 37th state to join the U.S. union?
• In what year did that state join the union?
• And what is that state's bird?

• Nebraska
• 1867
• Western Meadowlark

Now, about those pesky video questions... Harry asked the following... (My answers are in blue)

• Can we talk camera stuff? Absolutely!
• How much file space does your Flip Video camera use for a 1-minute video? Just the same as yours (I measured...) 35.16 MB. That's an AVI standard. (Do you really want the pixel math?) And if you take 35 MB/min and multiply that by 60 minutes, you get roughly 2 GB, or the standard amount of space on an old Flip cam. If you want HD, you'll need to step up to a 4 GB model. In comparison, my Olympus F-120 movie feature uses 35.0MB. That seems like way too much to be useful in sending to a friend or something. While it's do-able to send huge amounts of video info this way, for the "Average Joe" there's a better way... Save the vid to the computer, edit it in something like Windows Movie Maker, and save it as a WMV file. (More below.)
• I saw the prices of the Flip Videos HD, 2nd generation cameras, and their prices have come down a way from last year. Ah, the dilemma of technology... When is "good enough" priced right before becoming obsolete?
• Still thinking about buying one. Lot's of questions about how to use it, programs, transfer files, etc. I'd highly recommend the purchase. Understand that there is a sharp learning curve, especially if you're not comfortable with drives and folders, importing files, etc. It's not that it's terribly difficult, but it is foreign.

But the real beauty is that a free service such as sendspace will let you upload your 30 minute WMV file (300 MB max), and then you can give your friends access to the download information. Granted, it takes a bit of time, but it works... Slick aye?

Congrats again to Harry!

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In the yard recently we've seen youngsters of all birdie descriptions, and they all have two things in common: they're hungry, and they want handouts from the parents. Chickadees, titmice, a family of downies, yes, even the young crows are importuning their folks for tasty bits of... whatever.

But the most entertaining are the orioles. Each year we have at least one oriole family in the neighborhood, and those young'uns seem to make life miserable for their parents, as they follow the adults around, fluttering their wings pitifully and begging for bites of jelly from our feeders. The kids are also entertaining to watch as they try to learn how to land properly on the feeders, positioned appropriately for orange eating or jelly-slurping.

Fortunately for us all, we were able to get some video of our oriole family in all its captivating glory. Enjoy!

See you by those crowded feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not too much happening in the screen shot below, is there?

Nope... Just a little Backyard Night Fishing (BNF), and the wildlife ain't biting. But that's not the point of this image. While it's a little tough to read, the "Number of hits: 23884" speaks volumes. That's the count of times people have visited our eBirdseed.com bird cam. (Actually, you can add about 4,000 to the tally - we changed cameras and had to start over.) But in any event, 23,884 is a pretty large number. To put it in perspective...

• If each view lasted only one second, that would still constitute well over six hours of viewership.
• Looking at the cam hit rate from another angle, if the typical American only viewed our cam whenever he or she was having a hamburger (three per week), he or she would have to live at least 159 years, cradle to the grave.
• And finally, to really put 23,884 in its place... If an astronaut were to leave planet Earth and travel at 23, 884 miles per hour, it would still take that person 10 hours to reach the moon.

Anyhoo... Mrs. CCA and I (along with 20,000+) have had fun with the online cam system... Hope you do too.

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 10:34 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

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

Ah yes... Nothing like a frisky turkey video to start off a post and the new year. (Between three males and seven hens, we may be ankle deep in turkey guano come next Spring.) Fun to watch the "feather draggers" though.

Next on the agenda is a great depiction of what happens to the remains of "The Thumb-Ripping Mudbugs"...

I mean we've got spent shards of carapace flying every which way. What I didn't get (and there wasn't much), the herring gull desecrated. While the crows didn't quite know what to do with their "Cajun Surprise", the gulls did. (I like to think of them as chain saws with wings.)

So that's about it for our latest birding excitement... But what's next for 2010? Ohhh... In the past, the boss has asked that I think outside the box... Really let loose... Okayyy...

• We'll have BNF pictures to prove that not only does Bigfoot exist, but that he has a wee relative alive and well, right here on Cape Cod. And if that ain't enough, we'll even tell you the true story of our terrifying encounter with the thing!
• There will be a smokey and wine-filled interview with local legend and former selectman, "Da Gizz" (replete in his bathrobe and straw hat) who will describe his flying squirrel. You're gonna love this one...
• And who would miss the upcoming bird showtune(s), bird poems, bird carvings... And that's not to mention boat building and
bathroom remodeling...

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 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Don't mean to gross you out on this New Years Eve/Day, but thought I'd intro with my poor butchered thumb...

Remember from last time when the greatest Christmas present of all time (crawfish) was announced? Well, it didn't take long for this old Cajun junkie to tear into them. And tear I did. Unfortunately, crayfish are spiny little buggers - what started with a couple of small punctures ended with a goodly slice o' thumb... all done in the peppy exhilaration of salty flavoring. (I have a great photo of the blood streaming down the thumb, but I figured that would be a bit much.) But who cares?!? We got us some mudbugs, and 'that what counts'. Love you Mrs. CCA for the best Christmas present ever!

Now about them birds... What follows is fairly self explanatory - robins, blue jays, robins again, a magnificent red-bellied woodpecker, still another robin, and of course, Don the squirrel. If there's a lesson to be taken away here, it's the importance of (unfrozen) water.

If you really want to have birds grace your yard, there's got to be a consistent source of potable water nearby.

And then there's our "Stupid New Years Hobby" pic involving our fave night-time pastime - "Backyard Night Fishing"!

Do you see that slight light splotch inside the white ellipse? Well, that my friends is a rabbit. That may not sound like much to you, but to the wife and me it's a blast... It's just like the days of my childhood when I'd go fishing with bottom-buck Zebco rod, a bobber, and Lord only knows what for bait... Oh the excitement of spying a bit of bobber movement out of the corner of the eye... Same feeling with movement on the cam.

Gotta run... Almost midnight... Happy New Year!

See you by the feeders in 2010,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:35 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)

Well, I wouldn't have done this, but Mrs. CCA did. (And yes, she does talk to herself and turkeys, and even shouts at the TV when her team is losing.)

It's really unfortunate that these animals have lost their fear of humans. Whenever Man and Beast collide, Beast always comes out the loser. (Humans have developed an extraordinary talent for killing things.) If for no other reason than principle, I think I'll stick with my "flying comfy deck cushion of doom" introduction to the gobblers. better they fear people than get shot by them.

While the wife was out in the yard, she also got a nice pic of a downy.

Kind of fun...

Beside the photo, it's been a gray day that's turned into a rainy night. Cold... Stormy... Beautiful. I wish the powers at be would let us dig clams at night - this would be ideal. (Mrs. CCA's blood pressure just jumped a tad. She's yet to understand the fine insight of the following Melville piece:)

The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.

Ummm... Better go... Not to worry... The wife and I will be out on one of those sleet-driven flats in no time. (Yeah, right...) At least we'll be watching for shore birds as we scratch.

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 9:10 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

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

Just stumbled upon the coolest "night-time hobby": Backyard Night Fishing, (BNF for short). BNF consists of bringing up our streaming bird cam at night and resizing the window such that it occupies a minimal amount of screen and yet is still viewable. Then go back to whatever, and from time to time restore the cam window and see if you've got any "hits". (That is, see if you've stumbled upon some creature of the night. See below...)

The fun of Backyard Day Fishing (BDF) is obvious. "How many types of birds did you see today?" But BNF is more sublime. The question becomes more of, "What kind of critter did you see last night?" The possum above is just one example. Here's a raccoon also from prior PM...

Not bad - two strikes within a single evening. But of course, the trick becomes that of actually recording the sightings. At first, I just kept the digital camera at the ready, and that worked out fine, except that should a visitor appear it was a hassle to fire up the camera, focus, steady and shoot. Nope, there had to be a better way. Enter the "NovaBird BNF Monitoring System" or "NBBNFMS" (or better still, the "NB²NFMS" - pronounced "en-bee squared-en-fims"...)

(Yeah, I need help...)

Just a quick wave of the hand, and the green, tripod-mounted, motion-activated NovaBird would come to life and the shot was mine. This is especially handy in a multiple PC/multiple monitor environment!

But there's one more avenue when it comes to optimizing the BNF experience... Introduce some sort of a trigger that entices the NovaBird to fire every few seconds. Behold the "Triggered NovaBird Backyard Night Fishing Monitoring System, or "TNB²NFMS" - pronounced... Oh never mind. The game plan here is to bring up the time.gov ticking clock and use it to regularly photograph whatever was on the screen before it...

(Yeah, I really need help...)

Anywho... This is just one more way you can have a blast with feeders, even if you don't have any... Just tune into ours... Now all we have to do is come up with some sort of BNF rating system. Let's see... five points for a raccoon, five points for a possum, 15 points for a fox, 15 points for coyote, 50 points for an owl, and 100 points for a bigfoot. Just be aware that I'm going to use every Rube Goldberg assembly to play the game. Just like in fishing.

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 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 off, check out our feeders at night. The top photo is that of a raccoon feasting. I give these guys an extraordinarily wide berth if for no other reason than rabies shots sound painful...

The next is a screen grab of our streaming Web cam. Obviously, no birds, but it has been action packed during the daytime. (Kind of meditative in a funny sort of way.)

And that leads us to our upcoming "Squirrel-Palooza"! This will be one of our live, free, stupid, gotta-do-it-for-the-good-of-the-soul events. What we'll do is tether a number of ears of corn off the ground via a bungee cord and then wait for the velociraptors, squirrels to descend and attack the bouncing maize. I'll set up the live cam, Twitter (CapeCodAlan) the start of the insanity, and you can watch the rodents go bonkers.

Of course, this doesn't have to be our only "Palooza" extravaganza. No... Not even close. Now that we can move the camera around the yard at will, we can have live stuff like "Crow-with-Popcorn-Palooza" and even "Big Foot-Palooza". Just be afraid.

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 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thought we'd leave the streaming cam stuff alone for a while and move on to more mundane pursuits: possums and wabbits.

Looks like we now have a regular customer...

Yeah, he's cute, but he's still a wild animal and we give him plenty of berth. Ditto for the fellow below...

Aside from our new (or newly discovered) night visitors, there ain't a terrible amount different here... The crows continue to demand food (preferably old cold cuts)... The Hummingbirds are at long last gone from Cape Cod... It's hard to see the doves amongst the fallen leaves... Now is a good time to start thinking about winter (clean gutters, arrange for snow removal, insulate windows, brew beer, have furnace serviced, change oil in car, blah, blah, blah)... Day to day...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Just checked out back... A raccoon is feasting on spilled seeds... Let's be careful out there.

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:46 PM | 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

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)

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)

Thought we'd throw a little bit of everything at you in this post... Birds in photograph, birds in illustration, birds in video, and finally, birds in song... First, here is a nice shot of our Cooper's hawk...

I mentioned in my last post that the Coopers didn't seem to be particularly concerned with me... Well, that was even more apparent today. After Mrs. CCA got finished taking his picture, it was clearly time for him to go. Unfortunately, he didn't want to cooperate, and it took some considerable commotion to convince the creature that there were better hunting grounds elsewhere. (The old John Belushi skit, "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave" comes to mind.)

Onward...

Ah, the good old Tufted Titmouse... Tough to be down when this guy is in town... The illustration below is from a 1916 piece by Louis Agassiz Fuertes... (I'm very fortunate to own two of the original books that contain this artwork.)

And then there's our video of a couple of tufted titmouse... Neato, keeno...

Let's see... That only leaves the audio portion of this post. Hmmm... Ok... True, crows are birds and what follows is their "song", but if they're "singing" it might be prudent to think of them as the avian version of the Ramones. Just be ready to adjust your volume control.

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 2:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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)

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

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

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

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

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

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

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

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

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

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

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

This should be really, really fun...

Stay tuned...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

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

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

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

Gotta run,

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

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)

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

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

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

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

Frustrated by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

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

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

Onward, and on a completely different topic...

Looks like we got us a new grill!

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

Details of the build:

* Usual stamped-steel frame with heavy aluminum firebox.

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

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

* And so it went...

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

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

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

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

In keeping with trying new and unusual photography and video, I shot the following by packing our Flip Video Mino in an old waterproof "IkeLite" camera housing and sticking it out in the remnants of tropical storm Danny. The streaks you see and the sounds you hear are the raindrops actually hitting the case...

It was an interesting experiment, and the camera shifted in the case (see below with the back off), but all was secure and completely watertight.

And of course, the next photograph shows the empty IkeLite...

Granted I had to shim the rig for level, and bungee the beast to the deck for fear of the wind, but all seemed to go exceptionally well.

(Funny story about that acrylic camera case... I got that over 30 years ago. I was 13, and my buddy Richard and I had discovered snorkling. I wanted an underwater camera in the worst way, but couldn't afford a new one. However, I did have an old Kodak X-35 and could swing a used housing from the local dive shop that was six miles away. So in exuberance that infects only young teenagers, my buddy and I walked the trek twice to get the Ikelite. (The manager wasn't there the first time.) So that little plastic gem above cost me $15 and 24 miles... Ahhh youth...)

As for future unusual photog - stay tuned. For some time now I've been wanting to get some shots of birds under water. To that end, the wife has been looking for a large glass bowl that we can partially fill with rocks and waters as a sort of a birdbath. I figure I'll leave a path for the lens up through the bottom of the bowl. Like I said, stay tuned.

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 9:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Trying some new stuff here at eBirdseed.com... We're going to start playing with cameras in new and unique ways. I'm not sure exactly what we're going to do, but it should be interesting. (Read that, "I'll find yet more ways to insult the Lens Gods.") Subjects that have been mulled include radio-controlled macro shots (for those nice closeup, blurry pics); 3D images (we could provide those cool 1950's paper 3D glasses); underwater photographs of ducks feet (or anything else that moves); a stunt squirrel cam; or maybe even a rocket cam for inspecting nesting areas. But for the moment, I thought it might be cool to simply look at birds from the ground level, and see the goings on "from the 'hood" if you know what I mean...

Here we've got a blue jay taking some bread. Kinda cool. It's very fast, but you can always replay.

Gotta love an inquisitive mourning dove! I know this guy is common... But still, it's a pretty creature.

And then there are a couple more doves standing pretty for the camera...

And finally, there's "Doves vs. Don the Squirrel". (Or is that Donna?) Guess who wins?

Simple fun stuff really. I just snugged a tired woodworking spring clamp horizontally to the base of our diminutive Mino video camera and stuck it out in the weeds out on the lawn and let her rip.

Stay tuned...

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 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, our cam is down again... Sigh... We spent another weekend doing battle with CapeCodAlan's network. (Which has nothing to do with the eBirdseed.com network by the way.) We changed zipoid (nothing) on my local network, yet the beastie went tummy up anyway. After a ton of work, the network lives though the cam does not. We (once again) talked with our router manufacturer, NetGear, and (once again) their tech support came through like champs. Still, the cam itself still holds its breath and stamps its feet... Time for "Plan 'B'". As the photo below shows, the cam cable (snaking across the kitchen floor and up the cabinet) was far from perfect.

Stay tuned for updates to our cam system...

And then there's this hummingbird video from our new flipvideo mino...

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 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm going to keep this short... The four minute video alone will eat up enough of your time...

Yeah it's the usual suspects... Cowbird et al.

Before I go... Just a reminder that bird baths shouldn't be too deep. Back when I was a kid, we used to use an old bowl... A bird got into it and couldn't get out. Just use your heads.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding

Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding

eBirdseed.com photo library

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We first noticed a grackle trying to take a dip in an all-too-shallow bird bath and added water to liven things up. (Yeah, yeah... we added water to the bath and not the bird smart guy.) And, as you can see, liven things up it did. Looks like there's a couple of grackles and cowbirds. What's more, sunshine seemed to play a role in the activity; when the sun is out, so are the birds, but when the clouds roll in, the winged ones exit aqueous "stage left". Also take into account the effect of the bubbler... The backyard bath (near the feeders) sees little attention while the one in the front yard is often crowded. And of course, the front one is by the road - the birds seem to like that miniature fountain.

It's all simple fun really... We set up the tripod and (in the infomercial lingo of our time) "set it and forget it." Sometimes we get cool video, and sometimes we get 30 minutes of gurgling water and the sounds of cars going by. 'Tis life.

There really isn't too much to add to the video aside from this... This backyard birding stuff (B.B.S.) is astonishingly easy and fast. And compared to a Vegas vacation is dirt cheap. It is what it is. (To paraphrase, "What happens in Vegas stays with your money in Vegas... What happens in your backyard, deck, or coffee break costs little and stays with you forever.") Maybe a good future post will be a breakdown of the basic requirements for B.B.S., soup to nuts... Hmmm...

In the mean time, everybody out of the pool!

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 9:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Got kind of a smorgasbord for you today...

One of the most common questions I get is how to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeders. Sure there are baffles and flippers and witchcraft. And yeah, the first two do work. But, the problem (for me anyway) is that I like squirrels. Besides, trying to stay one step ahead of the rodents can be daunting... So, first up is a video that was recommended by our very own CaliforniaKathryn... (This is why the wife and I give squirrels (like Don) their own feeder.)

Next subject: hummingbirds. We had a ton of activity today... Probably because it's been rainy and cool, and they simply need the food energy. Mrs. CCA got a number of good photos including the one below.

And finally, there's the cooked "snausage"...

Seeing that this is the first day of Summer, 2009, I thought I might toss out my own $.02 when it comes to BBQ and food preparation... Take a look at the "meat products" above. They're done, right? Some would say overcooked. (They'd be wrong, but still, they might say it.) When we bought those brats, the package said that they were pre-cooked. And technically, I'm sure that they were. And as long as they were handled properly, shipped properly, refrigerated properly, and shelved properly, I'm sure that they were fine to eat right out of the package... But for me and mine, I'll play it just a tad safe and grill 'em 'till they glow. Besides, we honestly like the taste of slightly burnt. Like I said, that's just my two cents.

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 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yeah, more hummingbird video. I warned you that once we got the Flip video rolling, there'd be no stopping us. A few thoughts about that camera and the Novabird motion-activated cameras...

• Some time ago, I created the "eBirdseed.com photo library" (see link below). And that's cool, but it ain't enough. Nope... Not even close. I think we need a library of videos and even bird songs, and I'm pretty close to to making that happen...Hmmm...
• My problem with creating a video library has to do with the taxonomy of the beast. That is, how do we organize the content relative to our own needs, and at the same time make the Web app that will do the hosting of said content happy? I think I have a solution... Stay tuned.
• Mrs. CCA discovered a neat little trick for getting the hummingbirds to wander into the purview of the lens - she simply draped the top portion of the tripod in fake red flowers. Go figure.

Finally (and on a completely different topic) if you're thinking about a new and very different hobby (and educational) hobby, consider model boatbuilding. The beauty of this pastime is that it consumes almost no time, and costs virtually nothing... If you're interested, I wrote a six piece primer here.

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 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As a thoroughly experimental process, we also mounted the Flip Video camera in the bow of the kayak, started it up, and off I paddled.

So it seems that the FlipVid worked pretty well, but clearly we have to work on filtering out the sound of the wind.

Got a few shots of the osprey family from a distance, nothing great, but also got a few nice shots of some swallows as I paddled under them.

A while later in a quiet backwater, I came across what I believe is a willet. It's amazing how well he blends in with his surroundings, no?

And around here you can't go anywhere without seeing either Canada geese or mallards. Today, it was Mr. and Mrs. Mallard who floated by to say hello.

All in all, it was a glorious afternoon. I highly recommend a good kayak trip to anyone who needs a little peace of mind.

See you back by the feeders one of these days.

Mrs. 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 7:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First off, I thought you might enjoy this video of a grackle marauding a chunk of suet. No wonder we have to put out suet cakes every few days.

That clip was shot with our little Flip Video camera. (If you're a back yard birder, and want a cheap digital solution for your video needs, I'd vote for the Flip. It's small, shoots for 45 minutes at least, and cheap. Today, a Flip and a tripod will probably set you back about $100.)

Onward...

Concerning the swine flu... Being a "germaphobe", maybe I can speak to this... (Keep in mind that I'm not a doctor and have no medical degree, but what follows is simply a repeat of what the media has been reporting for days.)

• Don't panic. The authorities keep telling us to avoid a mad dash to the emergency room, and they're right. If you're the average healthy adult and you're not feeling up to snuff, give your doctor a call and let him or her offer direction.
• In general, influenza viruses are of particular concern for the elderly and the very young. Once again, the Center for Disease Control is warning that any flu-like symptoms in those two age groups deserves immediate medical attention. If you have to head for a hospital ASAP, so be it.
• Be proactive! If you have symptoms, act! Follow the steps above appropriately and promptly.
• Stay clean! Did you know that there's a proper way to wash your hands? A good hand washing takes a solid 60 seconds and plenty of flowing warm water and soap. (A health care pro taught me that.)
• Keep your hands away from your face.
• Wash your hands whenever you use the bathroom. (I keep one of those small antiseptic bottles on my person at all times for use when I leave a bathroom or a mall or wherever just to be double safe.)
• Do not eat when handling stuff that John Q. Public has touched. One of my old bosses was a math teacher, and he swore that he had a 100% chance of getting a cold if he snacked when grading students' tests.
• If you don't feel well, follow the steps above, and stay home. Don't take your problem to work or the ball park and then give it to someone else. Again, let the medical experts decide when you're ready to face the world again. (Now would be a good time to talk with the boss about telecommuting,)
• For heaven's sake, cover your face when you cough or sneeze. Try to keep paper towels handy, and throw them away after each use. Coughing in your hands and then grabbing a door knob is just plain dumb.
• Never sniffle! When your nose runs, it runs for a reason. Your body is trying to rid itself of nastiness, and sniffling only makes the situation worse. Sniffling takes that nastiness and drags it down into the dark, warm (98.6F), wet chambers known as your throat, sinus passages, and chest. (To hear some people sniffle and snort, it's a wonder that they aren't growing mushrooms inside their body cavities!)
• Watch for school closings. In general, use common sense. Likewise for travel plans.
• Sleep. Exhaustion equals weakness.
• Avoid sick people. Duh.
• Cook food thoroughly. (And no, you can't get swine flu from pork. Still, cook all food regardless. Ditto duh.)
• Lastly, as stated before, don't panic. Every year brings a new flu... without exception. If the current projections are correct, this year will be significantly less severe than the last few.

See you by the feeders and be well,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I won't waste your time... Here's a short Flip vid that the wife took of a downy.

The camera was mounted on a tripod and left to run for 40 minutes unattended. Obviously, most of the time was for naught, but we did manage to get 3:05 of good stuff. As for the Flip itself, we're still playing with the zoom and accompanying software, etc. But we'll figure it out.

The video does drive home an interesting point though - downies are steadfast eaters. In the case of a chickadee or sparrow, dining is performed on a rather "hit and run" basis. But the Downy (like the one above) really tends to settle down and chow. And that's more than fine by me. They really are beautiful birds.

This Spring and Summer will see more videos from us. I'd like to include more work from the ponds, wetlands, and seashore. I know that's not exactly the typical backyard feeder scenario, but time and opportunity will tell nonetheless. (I'll take pictures of birds on the moon if I get the chance...)

See you by the feeders wherever they may be,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First off, please keep in mind the flooding that's occurring in parts of North Dakota and beyond. (Hence the public domain picture above.) To help out, you can contact the American Red Cross here. And remember, this disaster won't end when the news coverage stops; flooding will continue for at least a month.

Have you checked out the hummingbird migration progress? We haven't seen any yet, but we're looking. (That reminds me... We've got to get our feeders ready for the Ruby-throated. And we're also going to have find a better way to photograph the creatures. No doubt that will mean that I'll have to start messing with stuff like shutter speeds and aperture, so expect blurriness, underexposure, and absolute white. You've been warned.)

One last thought... A flicker was on the feeder today. It was such a beautiful thing, and the bird was right in the sweet spot of my normal camera setup. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera setup "set up", and so this post will close not with a stunning flicker shot, but rather with a lame-o DVD rental suggestion. (I'm sorry, I just should have gotten those closeups... However, you can still see some great bird and wildlife pictures by accessing our eBirdseed.com photo library link below...) Now about those film suggestions... Parents, take a look at the old "Sherlock Holmes" movies (Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce). Yeah, the flicks are campy and contrived, but kids (and adults) love that stuff. Doubt it? Just look at the success of NCIS and the Harry Potter series... Just a thought...

See you by the feeders, (I'll be the one wearing the deerstalker hat and brandishing a magnifying glass... Great Scott!)

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi all,

It's a pleasant old picture isn't it? There's a crow and a squirrel out there. (You may have to squint to see them, but they are there.)

All told, there ain't a lot of hot birding action right now though - raining out. (Superb quahogging weather!) But not to worry, there's always something to write about.

Let's see... There's the economy... Uhhh... Nope. (If you want to get severely depressed, check out a piece I wrote here. Be sure to take a gander at the embedded link for the Beck/Walker interview only after you take your Prozac...)

Onward.

Aside from clamming, there's nothing that lends depth and meaning to a wet weekend wrap-up quite like Chinese food leftovers and a good cheesy sci-fi movie. Yeah, now we're talking! So nuke the lo mien and lobster sauce, and break out the high blood pressure medicine 'cause there's campy celluloid afoot.

By definition, the show for the day has nothing to do with quality science fiction like 1954's "Them!" or "Creature From the Black Lagoon", or even Howard Hawks' 1951 masterpiece, "The Thing". Naw, we want silly, illogical, goofy stuff fit for a six-year old. Enter "Reptilicus" from 1962. I won't give away the storyline because only a schizophrenic could follow the storyline, but suffice it to say that this abomination has plenty of roaring, horrible models, and used the entire population of Copenhagen as extras. (Oh I can't resist... here are some highlights...)

My guess is that there's an art form to making a "good" bad movie, and we've lost that art. In its place has come the rough and dark handiwork of computers and all-too-real gore.

Deep sigh...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As the old Stones' song goes, it's all over now. Check out the video below...

But make no mistake about it... Getting this short flick into a format you could see was a royal pain in the tail feathers. It seems that my new video camera saves files in a slightly less than "plays well with others" format. (Read that: "Video hosting sites like PhotoBucket and Flickr don't completely embrace the files pouring off our new 'movin' pickture masheen.'") But aside from proprietary file formats and gobbling 1/4 MB/second... No prob... We'll be fine. Just brace yourself.

As for the vid above... Is that cool or what?!? A downy woodpecker and a chickadee. If your audio setup is good enough, you can actually hear the chickadee flutter. And that's just a fraction of the total 11 minute piece we filmed. We also had/have great "close ups" of:

• the chickadee
• a titmouse
• house finches
• blue jays
• a nuthatch

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)