May 29, 2006

NestCam II Ends in Tragedy :(

I woke up this morning, turned on NestCam II and was greeted by this image:

I've seen one of the parent robins return twice in the last five minutes with a big worm in its mouth and examine the nest in a very perplexed manner. On that basis, I can't say whether it happened hours ago or in the last few minutes. I checked outside and there is no sign of any of them on the ground near the nest nor do I see a snake anywhere nearby. I honestly have NO idea what took all four baby birds between late last night (when we last saw them) and now.

I was also planning some very high resolution photographic stills today when the light was right. :(

Obviously, this is the harsh reality of bird survival in nature. It's just especially sad to have to witness it quite this way when we had such a great vantage point for watching the little buggers grow up.

I've no idea if robins are inclined to raise another brood in the same nest, but I obviously won't disturb the one that is there in hopes of re-use. If that happens, I'll be ready and we'll watch things from the egg laying and beyond this time.

Thanks to all those who "tuned in" and rest assured that I'll do NestCam III if the opportunity presents itself!

- Aaron

P.S. This obviously makes me feel especially cruddy about my original snarky title from last week. Remind me not to do that next time...

May 28, 2006

NestCam II: Sunday Update

This is just a quick update with a new, short video to document the progress in NestCam II. The babies are growing at an insane pace (which still amazes me) and in the last two days or so have started to turn much darker (less pink), begun sprouting wing feathers and their eyes are starting to open. The video is in two formats: QuickTime 640x480 H.264 (3 MB) and 320x240 MPEG4 (1.7 MB).

Have a nice Memorial Day weekend!
- Aaron

May 25, 2006

NestCam II: Thursday's Videos

If you haven't already, check out the original post regarding NestCam II (which will also link you back to NestCam I if you're totally new to this thread of discussion).

I had a little camera trouble this morning, but after removing about a million tiny screws and checking everything out in the PTZ camera, it started working again. I had it back in place at lunch today and made an addition to the rig: an umbrella.

I clamped a standard black, collapsible umbrella into place in case there are any sprinkles in the coming days. It also has the side benefit of eliminating a lot of the harsh light and shadow during the middle part of the day and keeping direct sunlight off the camera housing. Yes, the tree in the front yard looks a little odd with an umbrella stuck in it... but such are the demands of NestCam II. :) I also put the 20 pound sandbag I usually use as a boom counterweight on the base for added stability since the umbrella presents an opportunity for wind resistance.

I'll update the photos of the setup in the coming days. In the meantime, here are two videos (one from yesterday and one from today):

This was recorded this afternoon and is just a general look at the state of the nest. There is a fecal sac in the nest (first one I've seen produced outside the presence of the parents) which will be promptly dealt with when one of the parents arrives with a fuzzy black caterpillar. It gives a pretty good look at the four gaping mouths wobbling about. In the bottom right of the frame you can see the black nylon sandbag mentioned above. The video is in two formats: QuickTime 640x480 H.264 (3.6 MB) and 320x240 MPEG4 (2 MB).

I recorded this late yesterday, so the light and shadows are still pretty contrasty making it a bit darker. This shows both parents feeding the babies at once followed by one of the parents settling down on the nest for a bit. Notice the wobbling action as she settles into place. This is her positioning herself most optimally to utilize what is called the Brood Patch. Follow the link there to Journey North's excellent American Robin teaching materials. I'm providing the video in two formats: QuickTime 640x480 H.264 (4.3 MB) and 320x240 MPEG4 (2.4 MB).

More to come!
- Aaron

May 23, 2006

NestCam II: Bigger, Better and now with tastier Robins

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However, I was just sitting down at my desk a few days ago when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye just outside of my window. On closer inspection, I realized it was a mother robin settling down into a nest built in the crook of a cedar we have in front of the house. It's about 15 feet from where I sit most of the day working on my computer and I simply have to lean back a bit to watch the avian festivities.

Of course, just using my own two eyes would be oh so ungeeky and selfish. :) Any logical person knows this calls for cameras and capture cards and video encoding and Internet streaming. Granted, I did all of that with the first NestCam (yawn... that was so last week). It's time to ratchet up the quality.

First off, this is not in the attic which means I'm closer to my more modern computers that have vastly more horsepower than the steam-powered clunker I used for NestCam I. Second, I remembered we had a high resolution, remotely controlled Sony Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) camera at work that was retired some years ago off a VTel video conferencing system. This camera allows me to pan around 180 degrees horizontally as well as some number of degrees up and down, zoom in and out and do it all from a distance that won't freak out the bird. The geek factor has just jumped a few notches...

Finally, it dawned on me that my Manfrotto 3398 Convertible Boom Stand that I use to hold a 36" softbox in my studio lighting would be ideal for positioning the camera at all kinds of interesting angles to get the best view of the nest.

After waddling around in the yard for an hour with the boom, stringing some cords out the window and positioning a light on a branch... NestCam II was born. I added the light later in the afternoon since the sunlight was creating high contrast shadows across the nest and causing the camera to iris down to compensate. This causes the shadowed areas to become entirely too dark. Therefore, the purpose of the light has less to do with illuminating the scene (since the daylight is plenty bright) than with making the illumination even enough that the camera calms down a bit.

I'll definitely tweak and adjust things over the coming days, but the current image is a top-down view very close to the nest where you can see the four pink and fuzzy mouths gaping at you almost constantly.

I'm sorry I didn't get it in place a day sooner. While setting up today, I saw the mother discard blue egg shells twice which was my first indication the hatching had already happened. I had my heart set on recording the hatching process, but I'll see if I can score that bit of fun when NestCam III presents itself someday. :)

In the meantime, I've prepared a quick gallery of stills showing the setup and will link in the first video to start our journey. I'll continue recording little videos throughout the process and share any interesting news as it happens.

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This is the first recording from NestCam II. It shows the mother sitting on the nest, flying off for a bit (leaving the babies quite visible), then returning for the feeding and the ubiquitous "waste disposal". I'm providing it in two formats: QuickTime 640x480 H.264 (7.5 MB) and 320x240 MPEG4 (4 MB). People on slower connections will likely prefer the faster loading (albeit slightly lower quality) MPEG4 version.

Enjoy!
- Aaron

May 16, 2006

Sweet Briar College - Baccalaureate & Commencement

Baccalaureate

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Commencement

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I've posted two new slideshows based on a selection of the photos I took for the Class of 2006 Baccalaureate and Commencement at Sweet Briar College.

I had a great deal of fun taking these shots and assembling the galleries, so I hope others enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making them. :)

This was also a bit of a new experience for me since SBC asked me if I would be interested in shooting these events commercially this year. So, for the first time, I am offering event photographs for sale online. Thus far, I have been quite pleased with how the system works. Printing and mailing is being handled entirely by a respected lab and is completely transparent to the user. In addition, they have provided me with ICC profiles to soft-proof output on my calibrated display and a sales workflow that allows me to hand-edit and tailor every shot sold to the specific sizes and finishes selected by the buyer.

I'll write more on the topic in the coming weeks and months as I get more firsthand experience with it. I'm going to expand the selection of items beyond the initial SBC photos of this past weekend and possibly offer some of my creative photography in various formats as well. I have some customizing work still to do to spruce up the appearance of the site, but the pre-existing template I'm using is getting the job done for now.

Anyone interested in purchasing any of the photos (including the full class picture, the individual awarding of diplomas and candid shots from both Baccalaureate and Commencement Day) should visit this link. I'd be eager to hear your feedback on the process.

Enjoy!
- Aaron

NestCam: My Own In-house National Geo-esque Special

A couple of weeks ago I was in the attic messing with an old server I was using to rescue a hard drive my Mom brought back from her last trip to Haiti. The drive belonged to a hospital down there that she works with frequently... but that's another story (and has a happy ending, I'm proud to add).

While I was up there, I became acutely aware of the harsh scolding I was getting from a wren hopping around in the rafters. Nothing says "beat it, interloper!" like a peeved Wren giving you the business.

Knowing this meant there was a nest, I went back downstairs for a bit only to creep back more silently so I could hear the peeping of the babies. They were taking Mom (or Dad's) clue to stay quiet during my previous visit and the parent wasn't giving away the location of the nest while I was being so crass as to invade my own attic. Following the sounds, I found a rather elaborate nest built in the corner of a sideboard with a hutch that was retired to the attic a few years ago after Elisabeth declared it a monstrosity not fit for human eyes.

In it were four little scowling baby wrens (wrenlings? wrenlets?) giving me the evil eye. Naturally, my first reaction (due to being born with raging geek genes) was to piece together the necessary webcam to broadcast this to the world.

A clamp-on light with X-10 remote control (so I could turn it on and off from downstairs), tripod, Sony DV cam and Linux-based, BT848 capture-card endowed server later... I started broadcasting my in-house, National Geographic-esque nature video from the attic. I never got around to doing a breathy, Attenborough-like voice over (actually, I didn't do audio at all)... but it did the job.

The server was fairly ancient, bordering on steam powered... but it had enough oomph to get the job done at a low resolution. I used Fedora Core 5 running VLC to encode the video into an MPEG4 stream where I could tap into it and do local recordings of segments on my Powerbook and convert them to Quicktime.

I've assembled a collection of videos here to share. The quality isn't stellar, but it's usable and the files aren't overly large.

I also learned a great deal about wrens in the process. For instance, I was just beginning to ponder how it was they kept a nest clean with four little birds and a never-ending stream of big juicy bugs being stuffed down their throats. I watched in horrified fascination as that answer presented itself one morning... twice in quick succession. Don't be eating when you watch it, but it's rather fascinating (and described pretty decently here - I set Google aflame looking for a description of what I had witnessed and found it on a site about baby Robins).

A handful of friends and family tapped into the live stream while it was running last week. My iChat was humming with discussions about nestcam (Mom declared it more interesting than Tivo... MJ made it her lunchtime entertainment several days in a row). Without further ado, here are some recordings I made showing key stages throughout the process:

Click on each picture to watch the associated video.

	This is the first recording I made with one parent arriving to feed them. They are fairly young here and you'll see the parent consuming the sac mentioned on this site.
	This clip shows both parents arriving at the same time to feed. This answered one question I had when I read that the male often does the feeding because the female is already on another nest. Apparently that wasn't the case here. The question remains whether they are raising another brood or two over the coming months (which Wrens frequently do, apparently).
	This is the infamous "housekeeping" video that answers how the nest is kept clean. It's mildly horrifying and will undoubtedly appeal to kids of all ages (eliciting squeals of horrified delight). Details on understanding what you're seeing are available here.
	Empty Nest Syndrome begins here. :) A few days into peep-watching, I noticed they were starting to hang out on the "front porch" of the nest. I figured flight was a few days away. As it turns out, flight was about two hours later and they all left the nest over a span of about seven minutes (including one taking off over my shoulder when I went up to see if the first one had fallen off the shelf or flown away). I edited this down to around two minutes, so it has some jump-cuts in it.

The little buggers spent the next 24 hours getting flight training in the attic. Three of them got lost in the stairwell and drove the cat nuts (since he could hear them peeping just on the other side of the door but couldn't actually see them). I carefully ferried each of them back up into the attic where they perched on my finger for a bit and looked around before hopping off and disappearing among boxes and furniture. The parents, of course, flew around and cursed at me the entire time... it was a thankless job. :)

They have since left and, I imagine, are winging around the yard as we speak.

Enjoy!
- Aaron