This was an exciting weekend for the nest box cameras. All three of our nest boxes have birds- northern flickers, black-capped chickadees, and red-breasted nuthatches. New this year, the flicker and chickadee boxes have nest cameras, including streaming the chickadee nest cam! The flicker cam will be streaming next. Here is the link to the streaming video of the chickadee box, though not much is going on during the day, but in the evenings and mornings a lot happens.I installed the cameras and then packed the boxes with sawdust (click here for a description). This weekend, now that the boxes had been excavated, my wife and I focused the lenses and adjusted the camera angles, though based on the quality of the chickadee camera's video, we might need to do some more lens adjustments.
The photo above shows the chickadee nest box, camera, and the freshly excavated cavity filled with moss and squirrel fur. Based on the female's nest construction (see the video below), it looks like she will be laying eggs soon, then the real excitement begins.
Here is link a short video taken this evening of the female burrowing in to the nesting material to carefully create a pocket for the eggs.
Wow, you are awesome and have a lot of patience! Good for you. I love your garden! And I'll be watching the chickadees, how cool is this!
ReplyDeleteJust ran across this on the web while looking up information on flickers: http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/per/starflick.htm.
ReplyDeletePretty intense! Thanks again for your time!
One more thing!
ReplyDeleteI was just at Quality Supply and found that they sell pine/fur combo wood shavings for $6 - an option for someone with a nest box who doesn't have any sawdust of their own.
Love the camera nest box. Please may I ask where you got your camera? We are trying to find the best nest cam to get. Did you get your nestbox camera from this company? They have had good reviews and we may get one. They look like fun and hopefully a great way to enjoy the the birds too. Thanks for all your help and a lovely blog too.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Sue
Hi sue,
ReplyDeleteYes it is a great camera. I checked out your link and it seems to be the same camera, but perhaps marketed to the UK. Here is a link to the one I got- it is called a Hawk Eye Nature Cam
http://stores.homestead.com/birdhousespycam/-strse-3/Hawk-Eye-Video-Camera/Detail.bok
I hope this helps.
David
I was wondering where you got the bird house from or if you have a picture of the plans.I also was wondering if you have Black Capped Chickadees in the nesting box or Mountain Chickadees.This website is very useful and I like that it is on ustream also
ReplyDeleteAll my bird houses I have built. They are all based on the dimensions found in plans you can find online (the Cornell University website is a great resource). Black capped chickadees nest every year- mountain chickadees are only rare visitors to our garden. Thanks for your comments!
ReplyDelete