Of Wind & Webcams

1645 hrs - the wind has given the birds a hard time this afternoon though they have managed to find the spot on the ledge that is a bit sheltered and they have mostly managed to keep the chicks undercover. Well, except for mealtimes, which have come at regular intervals but have been quick affairs. Don't think I have ever seen chicks stuffed with so much food in such a short period of time! Princess has been "on shift" for the day as she can at least cover the chicks, Trey, while enthusiastic to help, is just not large enough and Princess keeps bullying him off the ledge. Being the dedicated family man he is, he does what he's good at and brings food for her and the chicks instead. These winds can't be making it easy for him to hunt either. Fortunately, the winds are forecasted to decrease overnight but we have a 60% chance of rain tonight and then showers tomorrow, clearing tomorrow evening. Looks like the next 24 hours will be damp for Princess and Trey will need to choose his "take-out" very carefully to keep "she who must be obeyed" happy!

1040 hrs - the Falcon Cam is back up and operating and it did take an on-site visit to get it up and operating (thanks Firoze!). The wind has definitely come up, almost as soon as the cam came back online we saw Princess get blown off the chicks and take one with her. The height of the retaining wall/lip on the ledge is turning out to be a huge asset this year. This is far from the first time Princess (and Trey) have been blown off the eggs and the chicks, in all the cases, the wall managed to prevent tragedy. Princess has moved everyone closer into the top corner and appears to have once again, velcroed herself to the chicks and to the roof.

0930 hrs - the Falcon Cam is down though this time it isn't a website issue. CBC will try to remotely correct the problem, and if necessary will go on-site. Will keep everyone updated here on the Blog and on the Forum.

0800 hrs - beautiful sunny morning, hard to believe that the winds are suppose to come up and rain is forecasted (again!). The winds are probably more a concern as they are suppose to gust to 50 km/h from the southeast. The nestbox is on the east side of the Hotel and Smith Street runs north-south so the wind will definitely be hitting the nestledge today.

Clips & Chicks

I have said before that I have a love-hate relationship with technology, I love what it can do, hate how much it makes me crazy, not because it goes wrong, but because I have to be prepared for it to perhaps go wrong. The "hope for the best, plan for the worst" school of resource management. Spent a few hours this afternoon downloading video clips from the webcam's internal recorder, it was wild! I, like most of our viewers, have been capturing images from the cam as the action was happening. It is entirely different when you can go backwards/forwards to find specific events. All that remains is to figure out how to play the clips from the Project's website. One thing I was reminded of, was how fast the chicks change day to day. They hatched on Wednesday and already they have grown noticeably and they have more coordination. By this time next week, the chicks will have doubled in size since hatching. And in about 50 days, they'll be flying. Not sure what more amazing to work with today - nature or technology!