New Peregrine cam in Australia

[MAK]

Now that's no way to treat your momma! What a bad attitude on that one! 

Ya think!?!

[Annette]

Quiet time for the peregrines

It’s been a fairly quiet time out in the trees over the last few days, with occasional sightings of each bird. Yesterday we were pleasantly surprised by a visit from Rob Bicknell from the Beaufighter Squadron and colleague, complete with large digital cameras and 28,000-foot long lenses! The trip began too quietly but after 1-2 hours we were treated to some fantastic high-altitude soaring, followed by some fly-bys & remarkable close-ups of Swift feeding on her branch, with some other great angles. Hopefully the results have made their trip worthwhile; looking forward to seeing some of the end products!

A brief video clip of a chick visitation this morning (basically to chase a fly!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tIkmtSI3-w#

Alone in the eyrie

[Kris G.]

Cute video!  I love when they look at the camera! Thanks!

[Annette]

Three young peregrines in bonding time

We were lucky this afternoon to spot all three youngsters spending time up on the ledge and all three seem quite happy in each other’s company, although we know what Ophir is like towards her parents, but we make the most of these moments before they become more independent. Swift is also sitting around the corner on the microwave dish arm, out of harm’s way! A 4.5 minute video clip can be viewed (apologies for image quality – bright, sunny days wash out our ledge view!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqG0V18ARQ#

Peregrine, one of three


Three, from the outside


Checking for food dregs


Three in a row



A day for learning to fly

The three youngsters have been milling around the eyrie this morning, with plenty of flight training, and nagging. Swift has been perched round the corner on the microwave dish arm, quietly watching events, while another feeding took place in the eyrie, so there’s still occasionally action to be seen in the cameras. Apparently one of them was seen yesterday around near the sunny courtyard over by the student residences yet again, sunning itself down at ground level, on a seat, quite happy!

A gory meal

[MAK]

  Thank you Annette! I love the pic of the 3 of them from the outside! So cute!!! 

[Kris G.]

Thank you Annette! I love the pic of the 3 of them from the outside! So cute!!! 

I love that one too!  Full crops!

[MAK]

  I know Kris, that middle one can't even put it's head forward cuz it's so full! 

[Annette]

Enjoying the peregrine young

It seems this season we’re going to be able to enjoy all three youngsters for the immediate future as they seem happy to use the eyrie as their base for daily activities, and indeed often more than one spends the dark hours in there too. This afternoon, in the low, dark, rain clouds they could be seen soaring across the pine trees, trying out-do each other in sharp wheeling and speed races. One pass actually took them down through the campus’s tree-surrounded top car park at not far above vehicle height! A couple of videos to watch – an unlucky stick being attacked, and more frivolity from all three (9.5 mins)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14QocTrstKQ#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnfkKexHLU#

Colourful close-up


Protecting lunch

[MAK]

  Thanks Annette! 

[Annette]

Some nice young peregrine moments

On a changeable weather day the youths have been enjoying the superior views available from their “Concrete Hilton� lookout. Sometimes you just want to sit, relax and take it all in; other times you just want to annoy anyone else who’s sitting, relaxing and taking it all in! We’re very lucky that these three know where home base is.

http://youtu.be/TrRrHoVU4a0

Happy face with lunch

[MAK]

Cute video. Thanks Annette! 

[Annette]

Quiet few days

Apologies for the quiet few days – we’ve only been getting fleeting visits from any one or more of the peregrines, whether it’s a youngster or two, or Swift sneaking around to sit on the microwave dish arm, out of sight of her youngsters. The most reasonable explanation of course would be that they’re all over in town buying us some big Christmas presents and hiding them in the trees. Various sightings of the youngsters at play have been noted and the campus guides, who have been showing next year’s prospective students around the place, have also been pointing out Orange campus’s most unique tourist attraction. Very frustrating without leg banding as we can’t positively identify the youngsters at any one point in time and we can only go on character traits (e.g. Ophir’s ratty moments, or quiet Byng!). Leg banding is being re-visited as a priority in 2012.

As a little Christmas present to all our viewers we can now make available a highlights page entitled “FCP Breeding Season 2011� (pdf format, 1.05MB, A3 size) giving a 1 page summary of this season’s activities; hard to pinpoint the best moments with about 80GB of raw records to choose from but we hope you enjoy Swift and Beau and the kids, all on one page!

It’s also been brought to our attention that there may well be another eyrie located in Orange itself, in a prominent park. We’re going to check this out as soon as we can , but if positively identified the question is then asked if it’s one of our previous young. Without banding we may never know, but it’s great that the Orange locals are becoming more aware of this amazing bird species.

http://www.gumtreecs.com.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Highlights-sheet-2011-A3-r.pdf

Mischief in the eyrie



Three happy young peregrines

New video footage from early yesterday morning of all three youngsters visiting the eyrie at the same time. No-one seemed too aggro (looking at you, Ophir!) and everyone seemed to be happy together once more. It’s turned foul today, with rain-bursts all day but with some clear days coming up we’re sure to see more aerial antics.

http://youtu.be/uWxgUYnQUFw

[Annette]

The run in to Christmas

With a week predicted to be possible showers and dodgy weather at best we hope to continue receiving ongoing visits from the peregrine clan. The ledge has been quiet over the last few days, and in the rain this morning Swift arrived to take cover. Amusingly she was caught out yesterday by one of her youngsters in her favourite hiding spot, around the corner on the old microwave dish. She sits there when the youngsters are in attendance, but she was finally “bounced� and spent about an hour getting an ear-bashing from the youngster who had taken residence next to her on the dish itself… all to no avail!

For the CSU students who follow us here keep an eye out in the latest CSU Student News as we have another article being run – thanks for asking us again Kate P! We are also booked in to give a brief Project talk to the Orange Field Naturalists group in early February at their AGM; Cilla is a member and it will be a nice captive audience!

Pleading for a share


Swift on the lookout



Merry Christmas to you all, from Swift, Beau and clan

A very big thankyou to everyone who visited and supported us this year. It’s been easily the biggest and most successful year yet for the Project and our ambitions. We hope that Santa doesn’t swing too close to the tower because he’s going to get a big fright, especially if the reindeer aren’t sure how to handle a 320km/hr flying dodgem car!

Campus is out for the break until 3rd January but the Project team will be making regular visits to check on activities in the trees. In what they’re calling the coolest lead-up to summer in Orange on record we doubt there’ll be food supply issues. With some luck, and a break in eyrie occupancy, we’ll also get the HD camera finally mounted and running. Then to wait until we can get CSU to update our web pages so all can see.

Best wishes to you all – you’ve all played a major part in FalconCam Project this year and your support is appreciated. It enables us to move on up, giving improved better results and views, and we hope we’re providing a valuable resource for the advancement of knowledge on peregrines falcons and raptors in general…

[Annette]

Forthcoming improved vision

One of our last tasks for 2011 has been to install the new and much-vaunted Axis 3344 HD camera. It’s a great model and works perfectly with our Milestone XProtect surveillance software package. We’ve also run some live streaming tests and initial results are very good. For now the world will have to wait for CSU to return to work next week before we can put the paperwork through the system to modify the nest camera feed to this new camera on our webpage. Stay with us for a bit longer!

At this point I’d like to give a huge thanks to Basil at Lan1 in Melbourne for all the months of discussions (and a meeting in Melbourne) we’ve had about IP cameras, appropriate technology, configurations and ultimately the recommendation and supply via Shane at IP Video Solutions. Basil and Shane saw our vision and share our enthusiasm. We wouldn’t have got to this point without them – cheers guys, appreciated! More to come; we’re now well on our way in funding for the second HD camera & upgraded servers, and we have some new ideas for Basil and Shane too…

Nest cameras – old & new


It was a gamble, as usual, to find a “window� of vacancy up the Concrete Hilton and there were some tentative moments when a feeding took place down below in the trees, with one near fly-past but ultimately no disturbance. The minimum amount of time was spent with the hatch open and on descending the tower a young bird was noticed quietly sitting on the microwave dish just around the corner. Monitoring shows at least one youngster still spends most nights in the eyrie.

Rob Bicknell from 30 Beaufighter Association dropped in just before Christmas and left us with a list of amazing close-up images from the camera trip earlier in December. With Rob’s permission we’ll make some shots available shortly, and you’ll also be able to see some examples at future public events & talks. Outstanding work – thanks so much, Rob!

Happy New Year to all our supporters and viewers, from FalconCam Project members Cilla, Scott, Ron and Ian!

[Annette]

First HD night vision

Hope all our viewers and supporters have had a safe and healthy New Year – welcome to 2012!

With the HD camera now fitted and operational we’ve got our first brief activity video clip available – a remarkable quality improvement over our existing nest camera. Here we see one of the youngsters paying a visit very early this morning. We’re still tweaking the camera settings, and this week will be speaking to CSU to bring the camera online via the website but for now our existing two cameras are still running happily.

Addendum: Just found some colour daylight footage from yesterday as well – how good are those peregrine falcon colours, and how inquisitive of the new thing hanging on their wall!

http://youtu.be/FK3zivys8qE

http://youtu.be/58yHDmtmmrM

The night peregrine



Swift makes a brief appearance

We’re having fun getting used to the new HD camera, with the odd video clip and occasional photo. No-one’s been staying over for the last few nights but Swift hopped in not long ago with a little food which she placed in the corner before hopping out again. She’s camera-shy but one brief frame showed her off:

Swift briefly


Male, Beau, has appeared occasionally and he seems intent on preparing the nesting scrape from this season. Doesn’t stay long but at least he smiles to the camera!

http://youtu.be/ynLmJHxqbc8