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: www.birds.cornell.edu%2fNetCommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1270&srcid=1272&erid=0">Inside Birding
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.allaboutbirds.org%2fnetcommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1189&srcid=1272&erid=0">All About Birding
Man oh man oh man... Does that shot above reflect the pensive nature of my day... The computer that controls our outdoor cam has lost its ability to establish a network connection. Winsocks, TCP/IP stacks, HW... I'm pretty sure I've tried everything short of kneeing it in the Netherworld and calling it "Waldo". Nothing to do but keep on keeping on. I'll let you know when the system is back up again.
Onward...
For some reason the bird activity has been slow around here lately. I'm not sure if the turkeys are scaring them away, or if there's a hawk watching, but in any event, the feeders have seen little action. (Though I did see a small pile of feathers, so maybe that explains everything.) Ah, the joys of the backyard.
What else? Well, believe it or not, we've had 511 posts on this blog. Of those, I wrote 482 not counting this one. I wouldn't even guess at the number of readers. But to give you some idea, our (now un-cooperative) bird cam has gotten over 18,000 views (22,000 if you count the first iteration of the camera). Anywho, I'm inching up on the 500 post mark... Not sure what I will do to celebrate the Big Five Oh Oh. Just brace yourself.
Better run and see if I can't fix that stoopid streaming gadget... See you by the feeders,
CapeCodAlan
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.birds.cornell.edu%2fNetCommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1270&srcid=1272&erid=0">Inside Birding
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.allaboutbirds.org%2fnetcommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1189&srcid=1272&erid=0">All About Birding
Yeah, this isn't the mostly politically correct of posts, but given the season, it seems only fitting that you get to see the popular banquet in the flesh if you will...
The photo above reminds me of the lyrics of an old jazz/blues tune by Johnny Mercer,
The next pics were taken of a gobbler that was standing on the railing of our deck..
The two photographs above should give everyone reason to give these creatures a wide berth. (And that's to say nothing of the wings!)
So where's that gravy? Just kidding, just kidding. Truth be told, the turkey hunting season has come and gone in Massachusetts. Consider also the ever shrinking hunting grounds, and this Thanksgiving will no doubt be fueled by store-bought bird. And I'm not saying that that is necessarily a bad thing, but I am saying that I can understand why some folks might prefer to harvest their own toms and/or hens.
No, I'm not a hunter, but consider this... The average adult wild turkey weighs between 16 and 24 pounds. On the other hand, a commercially grown turkey may weigh up to 40 pounds. Hmmm... I can see why people might think twice about buying a dinner that has been so hybridized that it can't even mate and the hens have to be artificially inseminated... Ummm... Yeah, that would make some think twice. There's something to be said for the good old fashioned way. (Why do I get this feeling that there "frustrated female gobbler" jokes and "masculine avian feelings of inadequacy" jokes starting to simmer?)
Time to go...
See you by the feeders,
CapeCodAlan
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.birds.cornell.edu%2fNetCommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1270&srcid=1272&erid=0">Inside Birding
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.allaboutbirds.org%2fnetcommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1189&srcid=1272&erid=0">All About Birding
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: www.birds.cornell.edu%2fNetCommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1270&srcid=1272&erid=0">Inside Birding
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.allaboutbirds.org%2fnetcommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1189&srcid=1272&erid=0">All About Birding
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: www.birds.cornell.edu%2fNetCommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1270&srcid=1272&erid=0">Inside Birding
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: www.allaboutbirds.org%2fnetcommunity%2fPage.aspx%3fpid%3d1189&srcid=1272&erid=0">All About Birding
