Rfalconcam Forum

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-owl-box (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-owl-box)

She's a beauty. Owls are so cool. Thanks

OH and LOVE the names too..Molly & McGee...

I loved the names too and it says that it appears she's a first-time mom.  And LOTS of eggs-6!!

SAN MARCOS — Any day now, Molly’s eggs are going to start hatching, to the delight of the tens of thousands of people worldwide who have followed the barn owl and her mate McGee on a 24/7 video stream from a home in San Marcos.

Since the owls took up residence in January in an owl box in Carlos and Donna Royal’s backyard, the viewers have witnessed the courtship and the laying of six eggs and now anticipate the hatchlings like expectant relatives in a waiting room. “This has turned into so much fun,” Carlos said.

He calls Molly “the world’s most famous owl.”

She has her own Facebook and Twitter accounts, and in a little more than a month more than 100,000 viewers visited the owl box. Royal said he expects the numbers to rise even more after the eggs hatch.

The couple live on an acre off Twin Oaks Road and put up the owl box because they like bird watching. “We waited and waited and waited two years for owls to show up,” he said.

The Royals did not know that their box had attracted a pair of owls until the storms in January blew down their fence near where the box sits on a steel pole, 15 feet in the air. Their neighbor asked if they had heard the owls screeching during the storm.

Royal decided to place a camera outside the owl box so as not to disturb Molly and hooked it up to their television. When he decided to do some live streaming, he called his grandson Austin Faure, 17, a student at High Tech High in San Marcos, for help.

Then Royal added an infrared camera so he could stream at night. Royal was having so much fun with it, he e-mailed a friend and invited him to go to the site to see Molly and McGee.

“They must have sent it to their friends, and the next thing I know, we have 100 people at a time viewing the owl box,” he said.

The owls house sits on a 15 foot pole in the backyard.

One Owlet has hatched-named Max.

Local Barn Owl Beats Puppies And Pandas To Become Internet Superstar

March 23, 2010

Last month, a couple in San Marcos set up an owl house for an adorable barn owl named Molly who proceeded to lay six eggs. Carlos and Donna Royal installed a video camera in the house that broadcasts a live, 24-hour web feed of Molly and her hatchlings.

Since that time, one egg has hatched and a little pink owlet (named Max) now shares the owl house, which looks like a little wooden box. Max spends most of his time trying to lift his tiny fuzzy head. It's really hard when you don't have neck muscles.

Carlos and Donna have become owl experts. They hold web chats and Carlos fields general questions about barn owls. The live stream has close to 2 million views. Elementary schools are watching and reportedly, so are the troops.

Last night, those watching held an impromptu roll call announcing where they were from in the chat feature. Cities from all over the US were represented, as was Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Ireland...it just kept going. I'll admit, I was among them. The whole thing is pretty addictive.

I will say, things get all kinda crazy in that owl house at night. A male owl named McGee visits for some shrieking and mounting, leaves immediately, then returns minutes later with some kind of rodent gift for Molly. Total playa! At one point Molly actually left the house, and viewers were able to get a good look at Max as he tried to stumble over the other eggs after his mother. It was wild kingdom adorable.

A second egg has hatched!

A new baby appeared Tuesday night for San Marcos Internet celebrity Molly the Barn owl.

Thousands of people around the world have been glued to their computer monitors recently watching the owl that's moved into the barn of San Marcos residents Carlos and Donna Royal, the North County Times reported.

The Royals are broadcasting Molly's nest 24/7 as she takes care of five eggs. Right after the second egg hatched just before 7 p.m. Tuesday, Molly shielded the owlet from view, the paper reported.

In the meantime, viewers can watch Molly as she sits on her nest, getting up every 15 minutes to roll each egg and shift her position to make sure they stay equally warm.
 
As word about the live feed has spread, the number of people who have logged on has jumped to more than 360,000. Thousands are also following Molly on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter and "her" online blog.

I think a Barn Owl is such a special and strange bird.
I really like this webcam.

I do too, Aafke.  :happy:

Max is the first-born, Pattison was 2nd and at 3:11 PM, Austin hatched!

                                              :hatch1: :hatch1: :hatch1:

 :heart: the names! Thanks Kris! :clap:  I hear a mourning dove... :wave:

Here's the darlings

Great pic! Thanks!  :clap:

I swear momma owl sounds like a dolphin sometimes....I keep hearing Flipper.  :stupid:

She does make some really funny sounds.   :confused:

I'll say.....hubby's in the other room saying..." What the heck are you listening to"?  I say "go back to  :nap:, your dreaming"  :harhar:

Ok so McGee just popped in for a quickie and left. Momma screamed and when he left, she followed, probably to give him a piece of her mind. The nerve.   :-[

Annnnd he's at it again!!  :o

Is he for real???  :o

So, he's persistant  :devil:

It was just feeding time, very nice

So cute! (http://s18.rimg.info/42e163610358101ca2ff307be0afa688.gif) (http://smiles.rc-welt.com/smile.153384.html)

Wesley hatched this afternoon!  What's with all the male names Max, Pattison, Austin and now Wesley. ???  Molly has her wings full!

It's funny...you can't tell male/female names anymore...the only person I know named Austin is a girl!  And there was another odd one...can't recall right now...but at work there was a guy & a gal in the same dept with the same odd name...I don't get some of the names-or weird spelling of regular names...

I know what you're saying, Ei.  Times sure have changed!

:ditto:  Mega Old-Timer Dittos!  :ditto:

Barn Owl Feeding - still one egg to hatch.

Good Golly Miss Molly! I love her. They are so cute.  :angel: Thanks Joyce.

They ARE cute!  I swear that Mom looks like a white mushroom  :laugh:

This Owl Box thing is really getting out of hand, and I'm wondering why. Loyal and attentive readers may remember that last week I wrote about Molly, a mother owl in San Marcos with her four healthy chicks and one apparently healthy egg. That is still the situation as I write this.

Well, Molly has hit the big time, or at least the big time for owls. One reader wrote to tell me that there is a bar near San Marcos in which, during daylight hours, all the television sets are tuned to owl cam. I could not confirm that data, but I do like the idea of daytime drinkers debating which chick can currently be seen poking his/her head from under Mommy's butt.

That's one of the major events going on in the Owl Box. There's also a lot of pecking and rummaging. At evening time, McGee, the male owl, comes swooping in with some delightfully eviscerated rodents, and I imagine drinks are on the house during that bloody yet cuddly display.

But it's not like Molly is the only bird with her own cam. She's not even the only owl. The Hungry Owl Project, which is part of the WildCare hospital in San Rafael, has an up-and-running Barnowl Cam, with up and squirming chicks. Alas, it is not streaming video, but it's still pretty good: www.hungryowl.org/barnowlcam.html.

And there are eagles and hawks and hummingbirds, all with their own cams, many of them with eggs because 'tis the season, and all of them cute in their own bird-like ways. So why Molly? Is this one of those "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" deals, where citizens get all involved in something - in this case, a relatively benign something - while other apparently equally appealing things never get off the ground.

I'm thinking about Ponzi schemes. Now, the basic idea behind a Ponzi scheme is not hard to grasp; I'm sure almost any larcenous human being could work out the mechanics. So why do some Ponzi schemes succeed spectacularly (until they fail - failure is built into Ponzi schemes) and others never get off the ground. Is it skill of presentation or timing or what? Was Bernie Madoff that much smarter than all the other crooks?

Why is this owl different from all other owls?

I think the same thing about pop musicians too. Obviously there are a few wonderfully talented or quirky or whatever singers, and their success is not a mystery. (Although not all amazingly talented pop musicians make the big time; they become "cult favorites," which is a term of art meaning "marginally employed.") But then there's the great seething mass of people trying to become pop stars, and a few of them do and most of them don't and the difference between the first group and the second is not perceptible.

Even a gigantic star-making entity like "American Idol" can't make pop stars, not with all the money and the exposure in the world. Of the winners, only Carrie Underwood is an honest to god star, and she's really a country singer who won a pop contest. (Jennifer Hudson, I should remind you, did not win "American Idol," which makes my point very well.) So if you can't create a pop star with all the money and power in the world, and you can't get a Ponzi scheme going unless the stars are aligned, and you can't make your comedy video go viral no matter how much you plug it - what are we to think of the owl?

Popular culture is less predictable than you might think. I know there are singers and strippers and comedians out there who decided to take the low road, because crude always sells, but the interesting thing is that crude does not always sell - although sometimes, you bet - and those people did not make it. You do not know who they are.

And yet, an owl gets 4 million unique viewers and counting. Very few cable television programs get 4 million viewers; maybe they should have thought of putting an owl in the picture.

Maybe reality, provided it's real reality and not "reality" in the entertainment sense, is just riveting. Confession: I have an Owl Box window open on my computer even as I am typing this. The fifth egg has yet to hatch, and it's not clear whether the new owl will live. Plus Carlos, owner of the Owl Box and latest Internet sensation, is answering questions from schoolchildren. So cute.

Owls are all the rage these days - or at least one owl is. Does that not strike you as curious?

I  :heart: Molly cam

It's all the social networking that's caused the popularity.  I got invited to be a fan from a friend on Facebook, and it is popular on Twitter too.  I'm surprised their website hasn't crashed from so many hits. 

Wait til we have fluffballs on the main cam!

 :thumbsup:

  I have been following Molly and McGee for some time now.  They were mentioned on GMA
  a few days ago, although not too favorably.  They have a large following, people from many
  countries log into the chat.  I believe the bar you refered to is the Elephant Bar in San Marcos.
  The local followers meet there.  The gentleman who put up the box in his back yard is
  Carlos Royal.  He waited two years before the owls took residence.

A columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jon Carroll had a cute column this morning.

THOUGHTS ON THIS OWL THING
By Jon Carroll


This Owl Box thing is really getting out of hand, and I'm wondering why. Loyal and attentive readers may remember that last week I wrote about Molly, a mother owl in San Marcos with her four healthy chicks and one apparently healthy egg. That is still the situation as I write this.

Well, Molly has hit the big time, or at least the big time for owls. One reader wrote to tell me that there is a bar near San Marcos in which, during daylight hours, all the television sets are tuned to owl cam. I could not confirm that data, but I do like the idea of daytime drinkers debating which chick can currently be seen poking his/her head from under Mommy's butt.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/#ixzz0kNwsNKov

Gayle

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6387874n&tag=related;photovideo (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6387874n&tag=related;photovideo)  Video


an internet sensation

Question for Shaky: Do you an idea how many people view the cams? I got  a message from a woman yesterday saying she saw my pic of Kaver on fb and asked if that was Kaver from the Kodak Falcons. Obviously, lots watch but are not members here or on Yahoo.  Interesting to know some numbers

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6106734/highlight/64896 (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6106734/highlight/64896)   :clap:

How sad that the web page has to carry this type of disclaimer.

Welcome to the Nanny World!  :scaredblue:

There is no way to accurately determine the number of people (aka visitors) who view the cameras. We can only count the number of hits, visits, and unique IP addresses.

We've received nearly 6 million hits in just the first 12 days of April, but hits do not equal visitors.

We've received over 58,000 visits in the first 12 days of April, but visits don't equal visitors either.

Our site was accessed by nearly 14,000 IP addresses in the first 12 days of April, but once again, IP addresses don't equal visitors because a visitor can access our site from more than one IP address (work, home, school, etc.) and more than one person can share an IP address. However, this is the closest we can get to estimating the number of visitors we receive.

So let's say that roughly 14,000 people have visited Rfalconcam in the first 12 days of April. For all of March, the number was roughly 17,000.

Looks like business is picking up!

It would be safe to assume that word is spreading about the egg laying to piggy-back on MAK's comment?

Most ever useres & guests on the forum was 107 on 04/08 3:11PM...just shortly after egg 1 was laid...

Wow, I'm impressed with the #'s...thank you Shaky. MK were very popular and so are A&B. I just love how people "stumble upon" this site and your viewer. Out of the blue, they view.  :clap:

Reality has set in for Molly the Barn owl and the San Marcos homeowners who made Molly an Internet celebrity. The babies have left the nest.

Thousands of people around the world tuned in to watch Molly and her five eggs in The Owl Box live stream from the barn of San Marcos residents Carlos and Donna Royal.

Now, just one day after the last baby was spotted taking off, the web cam that started it all will be turned off .

Viewers watched Molly 24/7 as she sat on her nest, getting up every 15 minutes to roll each egg and shift her position to make sure they stayed equally warm.

Thousands also followed Molly on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter and "her" online blog.  Some even started discussing M.O.D. or "Molly Obsessive Disorder" -- apparently a self-diagnosis for those who were spending too much time watching the owl family.

According to our media partner the North County Times, the live stream attracted 8.4 million computer users over the span of four months.

"This whole story has been kind of a magical event," Carlos Royal told the paper.

The Royals plan to thank their viewers before turning off the camera Monday at 6 p.m. Here's the link for those who want to peek in for one last time.

It was fun watching them!  :clap:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7667772 (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7667772) Carlos and Donna's last video!

We were wondering how long it would take Molly to lay an egg the second time around. Now we know. She laid her first egg of her second clutch this morning 7-6-10. No, we will not be broadcasting. We are still trying to get out of town but as long as we are here we will keep you up to date on Molly and McGee.

http://mollysbox.wordpress.com/blog/ (http://mollysbox.wordpress.com/blog/) Molly's blog

These birds are gorgeous and I love their names. Thanks p  I mean Donna! :devil:

:laugh:

Round 2 this season. Meet Ashley

Ashley hatched @ 3:30 this am

http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox#utm_campaign=www.facebook.com&utm_source=3034451&utm_medium=social (http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox#utm_campaign=www.facebook.com&utm_source=3034451&utm_medium=social)  Live cam

Dang!  Here we go again...another addiction...  :rofl:

Soo Cute....

I just saw the little one.
Over 6000 watchers.
Thanks Donna

And they were on NBC News (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_#38607249) tonight

Molly had another hatch, her name is Carrie after Carrie Underwood.

And there is Kelly,3 rth hatch last night.Those noises,so sweet,only hear them when they're so little.
Greetings Carla

Molly helps Jody out

Hi Donna ,I saw that hatch it was great to see,but last night Jody didn't make it and Kelly didn't make it eather a few days before.It's now only Ashley and Carrie.I stopped watching last night because it didn't look good.

Greetings Carla

Molly and her 2 daughters....Ashley & Carrie. They are getting big FAST!

They are so cute!  Thanks so much for posting this, Donna!

getting big and cuter
1 day apart

 :happy:   Owls have such expressive faces. I rather enjoy them! ;)Thanks Donna. ;D

Ashley & Carrie have left the nest. That went too quick.

SWEET!

Cuteness alert!

Look at Molly.

http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox#utm_campaign=unknown&utm_source=3034451&utm_medium=social (http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox#utm_campaign=unknown&utm_source=3034451&utm_medium=social)

Pretty owl!   :2thumbsup: