FalconCam Project

Yesterday we climbed the tower again to attempt a cleaning of the viewing windows but we’re now faced with very alert and easily alarmed chicks who insist on backing out to the wooden ledge to argue the case when a white rubbery glove enters the box to wipe our view back again. It’s ‘heart in mouth’ stuff because they’re not ready yet for any flight but are now at the age where they’re happy to play on the ledge, often facing inwards and sometimes tripping over themselves or being hit in the head when one wants to attempt wing stretching or flapping. Their frustration is growing with each day of being confined to such a small space.

Within the day the viewing window has turned dark again!

The world becoming a more interesting place

There is a definite difference between the three chicks now; two are well advanced in their fledging (left and right in the photo) and are more likely to hang over the ledge than the third chick (middle) which still has a way to go on both counts. Possibly the difference between male and female, but hard to tell with limited video footage at the moment!

Maybe less than a week to go before first flights (aged 34 days and 32 days respectively now) …

With the three furry blobs rapidly turning into scraggly teenage peregrines they’re quickly learning what’s safe and what’s not safe. What’s safe for them is mum or dad arriving with new carrion. What’s not safe for them is a mysterious white rubber gloved hand protruding into their nest to clean pooey windows. The cacophony of alarm calls is enough to be alert to but today an attempt was made to clean our camera windows and was beaten off after it was noticed one of the chicks was balanced out on the wrong side of the ledge, and indeed nearly lost balance. The roost was closed but the chicks, in their attentive state, weren’t going to leave the ledge side of the box so our vision remains “clouded” for now and a new strategy will be employed shortly. Instead photos from the ledge camera show our peregrine juniors to be developing fast and with any luck they’ll be ready to attempt test flights inside of 10 days (being approx 31 days old now).

The daring three teenagers

Note: furry objects on the ledge appear much smaller than they really are – at more than 300mm m(12″) they’re occupying most of the spare space in the nest now, and when either parent comes to visit they’re confined to the microwave transmission dish mounting around the corner (when the sun doesn’t make it too hot to perch on).

New videos – this is what we’re up against now when we venture in to do some housework; footage from the new camera showing daily life in the roost, and more close-in video of the (at that time) 26 day old chicks.

Apologies for the delay since the last post; we’ve been having some technical fun getting our new video camera running but I can report we have succeeded. The new pictures and video will appear quite different, in terms of colour etc, but the current battle is going to be to fit the three enormous chicks into the frame. Toughest of all they seem to enjoy sleeping and resting against the end walls where our cameras are fitted so quite often we can only see white fluff blowing in the breeze!

The new camera lens width is bigger than the current viewing windows so there’s a compromise with actual clear view but with the new roost sitting there all set to be installed when these three birds decide to fly off in the next 10 days or so we shouldn’t be too far away from providing a whole new peregrine world of vision shortly.

First new camera view; monsters on the prowl

We found out on Monday that our external raptor experts won’t be able to make it to campus this season to help band our feathery family so we will now wait until next season. A new discussion from within has been that we undergo our own training to legally allow us to band and handle raptors in the future. We may have missed the “window” now as the chicks have well-developing wing and tail feathers. More attempts at handheld video will be undertaken this afternoon.

The replacement IP camera and power supply have arrived and first tests show excellent video quality with improved recording capabilities. Attempts to “cross over” the old failing camera to this new model will happen today. We’re also looking at possibly re-jigging our back-end recording technology away from recent plans to further improve compatibility with university systems, so the proverbial “drawings on the napkins” are feverishly underway for re-design.

Day 20 for the two eldest chicks (Day 18 for the younger) and with wings beginning to form and stretch there’s little spare room in the old roost for our former furry blobs. At nearly dad’s height already (approx 300mm, or 12 inches) the available space to make one’s mark is limited but all three blobs appear to be very fit and healthy, no doubt helped by a pair of excellent hunting parents and a bountiful Spring dinner menu.

A roost entry was made this morning to clean the viewing and camera windows again but this time our avian teenagers kicked up a little fuss during the very careful intrusion, and before confirming the parents weren’t actually in there as well the calls were identified as young but maturing falcons. But as soon as dad arrived with a late breakfast the cries reverted back to pleading, hungry and helpless chicks again!

Latest videos can be viewed here … and here …; sorry about the quality but the art of peregrine roost window-cleaning is yet to be perfected without complaints from the tenants!… (with apologies to all sardines out there too!)

After a couple of days without vision a climb was made this evening to wait for mum to finish feeding the 3 blobs and then to depart for a few minutes before an attempt was made to head in to the roost to clean the well-poo’d windows! The camera was permanently on infrared lighting because the window was so dark with ‘stuff’ but all was cleaned safely and exited without any incident, with camera rebooted again. Having just received a very big feed all three chicks were happy to just sit and watch, and allowed us to obtain further great close-up footage which can be viewed here …

Full as ticks after a big dinner

Rough size estimates now show them to be squatting at approx 200mm (8 inches) tall at 16 and 14 days old respectively. Which means there’s very little spare room left for either parent to take shelter, and the food supply has to be constant. After 20 minutes of being fed fairly fairly evenly they took a 5 minute break before coming back to finish off what was left for another 10 minutes, after mum had finished her fill. It appeared to be a pigeon this time. There will be relief when the new and much larger roost is finally swapped in to place after this current  family fly off in mid-November.

The first of the new cameras has arrived and will be tested this week before mounting and attaching to the video bank soon. We anticipate far better reliability and improved colour recordings. Talks are continuing with University IT staff to ascertain what coverage options we will be able to provide across the Internet soon.

Finally a lucky break with peregrine mum heading away for a lengthy period mid-afternoon and a chance to get in to the roost and clean both windows. The not-so-little chicks were intrigued with the monster dressed in white mask and blue gloves but soon forgot when dad arrived with a late lunch. They’re all eating furiously and now stand approx 17-18cm (7 inches). Pretty good photos were snapped using a handheld digital SLR along with great lengthy video with sound, and the resulting two videos can be viewed here (audio) and here ….

Waiting for lunch

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Note: for anyone wanting to view the collection of videos that we’ve made available online over the course of this 2.5 year project (so far) you can go to http://www.youtube.com and search on “peregrine falcon Orange”; this will provide all our videos (and some bogus ones that have somehow made the same list!).

Day 8 for the 2 older chicks (Day 6 for the younger) and the furry blobs are eating well, resting up and growing very quickly. Mum is doing her best to keep the food supply moving while providing good protection and warmth, even on these slightly warmer days. We can tell they’re eating well because both viewing windows are now well covered in poo and so current pictures and video are rather low quality. An attempt was made this evening up the tower for a long period of time to catch mum away on one of her brief flights to be able to enter the roost and quickly clean the windows but she stayed put so we will wait for another moment soon. One of the best features of our new roost, ready to be installed given the best moment, has been to move the viewing windows much further away from the “poo line” and in doing so also provides a wider angle view.

The weekend saw the project hit the newspapers and you can see a copy of the Central Western Daily article here …

We were visited today by Mr Robert Bicknell from our friends at 30th Squadron to see for himself what all the fuss is about and to take some photos away with him.  Fortunately we’d been up the tower to kick start the camera just beforehand and the gods were smiling because the camera stayed up all afternoon giving us some superb vision of the feathered family. During Robert’s visit we also received news crews from (click on links..) Prime TV and WIN TV again to interview us for the news tonight and to see our three new arrivals. We were also visited by the Central Western Daily newspaper team so our chicks are now real local celebrities! Thank you to all news and newspaper crews for their help in publicising our project again; the world needs a “feel-good” report occasionally!

Feeding footage from today can be found here … (5mins – long clip!)

With little coverage from the faulty nest camera today a trip up the swaying tower in the wild, wet and windy weather was made this afternoon and caught mum during feeding time (see video here). Two of the hatchlings were keen to get their fill whereas the third was more interested in staying warm, and mum had her work cut out for her in today’s wild conditions which included the occasional hail drop. A great day to have such a sheltered nest and mum is taking close care of her charges. We will attempt to obtain handheld video with audio in the next day or so.