I was out of town for 7-days and at least two Coopers hawks have found several prime, low-to-the-ground ambush spots in my absence. I haven’t seen nor heard from my bluebird male since my return on 6/21 and I’m afraid he may have been taken, as that’s atypical for him this time of year. Hopefully, he’s busy with another nest somewhere, but I’ve written him off at this stage.
I haven’t seen the female either, and she’s obviously abandoned her 2nd nest, but I heard/glimpsed at least one juvie today so that’s at least a positive sign.
On an unrelated note, it looks like I will have to discontinue the user-controlled cams due to bandwidth/cost issues ($400/month and my ads cover about $100/month so I must stop the bleeding). Nonetheless, that cam will be the main ustream cam and the frames-per-second smoke the control cam and it doesn’t cost me a dime.
June 24th, 2009 in
Bluebirds,
Nesting |
No Comments | 0 views
Well I’m down in Sanibel Island, Florida, and I set the cam computers up with remote control software before leaving. However, something has knocked the power out on all the cams on the pole so they’re dead-in-the-water until I get home. I suspect the squirrels chewed through the power cable again and kicked a breaker. The nightvision cam is the only cam that’s still on because it pulls power elsewhere.
Bummer but I brought my bird book down and have been having fun identifying shorebirds. So far I’ve seen a lot of Magnificent Frigatebirds (90″ wingspan!, longest wingspan in proportion to weight of all birds), Little Egrets, a Great Egret, and Ospreys–one with a fish in talons that was almost as big as the Osprey. We’re headed to Ding Darling State Park, so I’ll have some pictures to post later in the week.
UPDATE: We had a lodging/transportation malfunction so didn’t make it to Ding Darling this trip–apologies…long story.
Ding Darling State Park
“The refuge is part of the largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystem in the United States. It is world famous for its spectacular migratory bird populations.”
June 16th, 2009 in
Feed Me Cams |
2 Comments | 19 views
Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but with as many cams as babies and devoting a lot of time to chat this breeding season, I ran out of time for this hobby & something had to give. So…
Bluebirds:
First egg was laid on April 10th, 2009. Last egg was laid on April 14th, 2009. Hatching began on April 28th. Mother stopped brooding & abandoned feeding duties on May 6th. Father took over. All 5 fledged on May 16th 2009. I was not able to get a great recording but did get one outside the nest & one leaving. Go to the feedmecam live stream and click “ON-DEMAND”, then “Eastern Bluebirds Fledging”.
To simplify things, I will not be doing multiple bird streams in the future, so if they do a 2nd brood, I will be broadcasting it it all here with other cams as multiple windows instead of multiple streams that you have keep track of: www.ustream.tv/channel/feedmecam. So a one-stop-shop from now on for streaming/chat. Bookmark it, pass it along, stop in & chat…
Chickadees:
4 eggs laid. 3 hatched. Only one made it but looks good. UPDATE: the little one fledged at around 2PM on May 23rd. I think I caught the fledge on video & caught some of it outside the box. I will post that in the “ON-DEMAND” area mentioned above soon.
Feedmecam (user-controlled):
The user-controlled feedmecam has been upgraded to an Axis 233D. However, USRelay is still having problems getting the presets to line up but hope to have it fixed & tweaked soon. UPDATE: Yee-ha. I’m declaring the control cam FIXED.
I have started using twitter more to update fledge time, where the cams are (lol) etc., so please feel free to follow me on twitter:
http://twitter.com/kipdraper