OspreyCam Back Online

I am finally back to civilization after ten days in the field and I have good news. I am happy to report that I was finally able to get to the OspreyCam site and was able to fix the problem. The good news is that the problem was minor and resulted from a likely lightening strike on site. I have also changed some settings so I now have remote control of the camera

The not so good news, is that it appears that the birds nesting attempt has failed. Because the camera was offline, it’s hard to say what happened. The eggs may not have hatched, or a gull may have predated the chicks. The adults are still spending a great deal of time around the nest and there is a good chance that they may try to renest. They are working on a nest site at a new location. If the choose to move to this new site, we can easily turn the camera to the new nest. I have pulled the camera back a bit so that we can see the birds on the left side of the platform.

We will see what happens. Watch the nest here http://www.briloon.org/watching-wildlife/osprey-cam.php.

Wing Goodale, BioDiversity Research Institute

Back from the field

Greetings all! Home after long week in the field—up at 3:30 each morning, mapping the location of every singing male bird on remote islands. Quite a week actually, battling strong northeast winds that were so cold that I had on all of my winter outdoor gear.

I got word via cell phone that the osprey and eagle cams were down. We were able to resolve the problems on both cams, momentarily. Unfortunately, the osprey cam is down again and I am locked out of the computer. We have restarted the computer a couple of times, but it keeps shutting down. My fear is that the computer has been compromised from the earlier attack from the hacker or virus and may be down for the season.

I am heading back out into the field tomorrow and will be away from computers for another week. I am afraid that I will need to erase the hard drive of computer, reload all the software and start over—something that takes about a day or two. My challenge at this point is finding that day.

June is the month around which the rest of our year revolves because most of the birds in the northeast are nesting and raising young. At this moment I am overseeing six projects, four of which need to be completed in the next two weeks.

Come July, I will have a spare couple of days that, hopefully, I can put towards fixing this computer.

I hope you are all having a great summer and I will keep you updated on how all is progressing.

Wing Goodale, BioDiversity Research Institute

No limit to Osprey Cam Live Stream

Just a quick note as I am heading out to the field again. I am happy report that Kids in the Nest (www.kidsinthenest.com) are now streaming the cam and with their generous support we are able to take off the two minute cut-off.

There have been some questions about when the birds will hatch out the chicks. Since we were not monitoring this nest from the beginning, I am not sure when they first laid the eggs and therefore when they will hatch.

Let’s keep watching and we will find out.

I will be on a remote islands and away from my computer until next weekend.

Have a great week.

Wing Goodale, BioDiversity Research Institute

OspreyCam up and Running

I am happy to report that the OspreyCam is up and running again. It appeared to me that someone hacked into the computer and caused all sorts of problems. I have the camera up and running, but my access to the computer is limited because it has been compromised by the attack. Hopefully, it will stay running on its own without maintenance.

As far as the moving around, we are working on stabilizing the camera, but in high wind it will be a bit bumpy because of the amount we are zoomed in. Next year, we are hoping to move the camera closer to the nest to fix this problem.

I will be out in the field again tomorrow and away from a computer, but let’s hope that that the camera keeps running.

Wing Goodale, BioDiversity Research Institute

OspreyCam Update

Good morning. I just got back from the field—dodging thunderstorms, counting birds, cooking over a camp stove. We had quite a successful trip, starting up two studies, and survey two islands.

As with all the cameras they take tweaking to get running correctly. As I can see from your comments, the camera didn’t stay live for too long after we launched it. I have logged into the computer and it appears to be locked up. I am working with the fantastic folks at FPL Energy Maine Hydro to get the problem ironed out.

If all goes as planned I should have it up and running later today. My only fear is that the computer has been hacked by some body—let’s hope that hasn’t happened.

Wing Goodale, BioDiversity Research Institute