Tag: camera

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webcams

The network connection from the farmhouse to the telescope observatory…

The network connection from the farmhouse to the telescope observatory is turning out to be a bigger problem than I initially thought it would be. I have been trying to get it going for a time last night, and on and off today. It looks very much like I will have to run a new cable. It is not a very easy job and is liable to take a good few hours. I will make sure that I get it done for the New Moon starts showing itself on the 16th. August is also a good month to see Meteors. I don’t know much about meteors, or if it is even possible to be able to catch them on the webcams, but I will try to find out. Of course it will be dependant on the weather.

Some of you have seen how quick the Badgers are eating the food that I put down for them. It has been taking them up to an hour to eat it, but for the past week they are managing to finish it off within half an hour. The Cubs are fighting to get the feed. I should think this is causing the Adults to make sure that they get share. This year is the first time that I have noticed the Cubs being as aggressive as they are. I have been trying to catch them playing on the webcams after they have eaten. Unfortunately they don’t play in the same areas, and often not in sight of the webcams. The new camera on the Sett entrance gives more of a chance of seeing the Badger. As soon as I get time I will get another camera located to the rear of the Sett.

I am going the the Barn Owl Trust on Tuesday or Wednesday to take the new camera for the orphaned Barn Owl youngster that have been handed in to the trust. They have been found after falling out of their nests or other reason. By all accounts they are in a barn on the Trusts grounds and are free to come and go as they please. I will let you know more about it after I have been there. I could well get the opportunity to speak to the Conservation person, who is arranging the webcams at the nesting site in Cornwall that we are to host.

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webcams

I spoke today to the person who I mentioned a…

I spoke today to the person who I mentioned a week or so ago about the Water Vole. His name is Derek Gow and has a Web site www.watervoles.com. He breeds Water Vole in Devon and has done a number of release programs around the country. We didn’t get around to speaking about a release program at Denbury, but we did discuss the possibility of setting up cameras at the location were he breeds them. Derek is initially going to send some photographs of the site to give me a idea of the possibilities.

There may also be another camera on line soon from the Barn Owl Trust. I don’t know to much about it, other than they have a number of this years chicks, that have been rescued. I will let you know about it as soon as I know more myself.

I haven’t seen the ducklings on the lake for over a week. With the camera looking at the branch where the Kingfisher perches, I would have expected to have seen them swim past there at some time. I know that most of the rats have gone from around the lake, so it looks like that I am going to have to think again about what may be killing the Ducklings and Goslings. It could well be a Stoat or Weasel. I have not seen any remains of dead fish around the lake, so I don’t think that it is Mink or Otter that is having them. But I do need to find out.

We have still got one Ewe with two Lambs running around loose. They should have gone to market with those we sent off last Saturday. As much as we have tried we cannot catch them. Some while back they were at the same farm that we had to collect the lambs from a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t catch them then. Some how they found their way back to Denbury and have been loose ever since. The Farmer who’s land is on the other side of the wood, will be be planting it with corm soon, for sure he wont want any sheep on his land then. Some how we need to catch them.

I hope you are not getting to bored with watching the branch in the water, waiting for the Kingfisher. I have fitted another camera up so that it can be seen on the dog cam, but for some reason I cannot get the focus set properly. I have been checking to see if the Kingfisher has perched on the branch today, I have not seen it as I did yesterday. I have seen it fly past the branch, so quick unless you know how fast they do fly, you would not realize that it was the Kingfisher. Got that wrong, I hope you saw it at 8.55pm just as I was writing that I hadn’t seen it all day, there it was.

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webcams

The Lock of the Lowe s visitors centre managed to…

The Lock of the Lowe’s visitors centre managed to get one of the new camera working today. I had hoped that the main PTZ camera would be working, so that we could see the last of the Osprey chicks before they migrate. They are going to try to get it going next week. We are sending another camera to them next week to get a closer view of what you can see on the new camera. It is positioned on a feeder that is visited by both Pine Martins and Red Squirrels.

We have been sorting the Sheep and Lambs out today, to take to market in the morning. The lambs being free range had to be got into the pen before we were able to catch them. There were only six to catch, but it finished up taking the best part of two hours. The time it took us, any decent sheep farmer could have done it in half an hour Taking livestock to a Market is not the way that I like to sell animals. I would much prefer to sell them privately, to save them the stress that they obviously go through when being sold in a busy market, and going from one vehicle to another. I did advertises them a number of times since I have had them penned in. We had a couple of phone calls, but no one came to look at them. We are taking all of the sheep to market except for the Portland’s, as there is a rare breeds auction on the 11th of August, that would be a better option for them.

When you take animals to market, it is better to pen them so that the sheep are of the same type and size, it is then easier for the buyer to price them. So it is an early start tomorrow. When they are in the pens the potential buyers, touch, prod, and feel to see what condition they are in. The cattle part of the market is the worse place. Where the Auctioneer walks around the the sheep pens to sell the sheep, the cattle are put into a ring, where they are moved around by the market workers, by prodding them with sticks. Very often the cattle are whacked harder than they need to be. As much as I have a lot of respect for the RSPCA in what they do, at cattle markets they do not seem as diligent as they are in their other good work, and allow in my opinion unneccassry use of sticks on cattle.

As we were sorting the Sheep, I had second thought about sending the Texel’s Ewes, Dolly and her gang off. There are five of them that were orphaned when they were Lambs, and bottled fed by a young girl. They are very friendly but unfortunately I really cant keep them. We can only hope that they get a good home.

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webcams

I have been trying to get a fixed camera positioned…

I have been trying to get a fixed camera positioned on to the branch that we put into the lake to try to get the Kingfisher to fish from. It has landed onto the branch a few times, not so frequently that it would warrants leaving the main lake camera that has a bird feeder on it during the day, permanently on the branch. As we haven’t managed as of yet to find another Birds nest, we will alternate the nest camera with the new Kingfisher camera, that way we should see a little more of the Kingfisher. There is still a good chance that there will be another Swallow nest to show. It is not to late for some of the Swallow to nest again. The picture we have got with the new camera is not to great. I will try another camera tomorrow, and hopefully put it on.

A few week ago after Kye initially trying to be friendly with the sheep in the pen, started to chase the lambs, who were still free range. She was only trying to play with them. Unfortunately unless dogs are stopped they will eventually harm the sheep. Kye had to be stopped and it wasn’t easy. If you don’t stop them they will chase any sheep they see, if they don’t attack the sheep they will chase them to exhaustion. At that stage they are liable to kill them. We had to be very hard with Kye, she seems now to have stopped the chasing.

The hay is close to the Sheep pen. Where Kye would normally go to the pen to watch the sheep through the bars, she now wants nothing to do with them. In fact she really pretends that she cant see them at all, and will lay completely out of site of the sheep. It did start off as play with the sheep, as she did with the Horses. The Horses are able to look after themselves. All of our dogs have always walked behind the Horses pushing them on, when the are taking them in and out of the fields at feed times, and other necessary movements. On more than one occasion Tass has had a kick from one or another Horse. Tass nips at the feather on the Horses feet, she will get away with it most of the time, but every now and then the Horse will throw out one of their rear legs, when Tass hasn’t moved away quickly enough she gets a wallop. Kye is doing the same, it wont be long before she get one to.

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webcams

Who s the cleaver one Within a few days of…

Who’s the cleaver one. Within a few days of putting the branch in to the lake, we got a Kingfisher on camera at 4.15pm this afternoon. I have only seen one twice in all the time that have been at Denbury, as you can imagine I am really pleased that we managed to see one today. I hope that some of you also managed to see it.

Both Swallows nest have now fledged. The way it was looking I thought that the Swallows in the nest in the roof would not be leaving for a few days. As it happens they have been flying around the farm yard all day, only returning to the nest in the roof this evening. On the other hand the first nest, although chicks fledged yesterday, have been perched on the wire by the side of the nest waiting for the adults to feed them. Unlike the roof fledglings they look as if they will perch on the wire, rather than return to their nest.

The Farmer who’s farm our lambs had eloped to, brought them back. The idea was that he was going to phone us when he was getting his sheep in, and we were to help. Because they are young he took his Ewes into his field, where my lambs were. They all mixed in together and he was able walk them back to his barn, where he sorted mine from his flock, and put them into his truck, to return them to me. They will be on their way to market on Saturday. Five of the lambs are still missing. It could be that they were washed away in the flood, although I have not seen any signs of them.

Woody is still loosing weight. She is not in any pain, with the pain killers we are giving her. Although if any one sees her in the poor condition that she is in, they will feel that I am being cruel and I am making her suffer. I don’t think that unless the weather changes that I can keep her going much longer.

The Osprey chicks should continue returning to the nest until about the 20th of August. The Bird box that you may have seen on the SWT camera two today, is where you may see the Pine Martin. There have been four around that area for the past couple of days. The camera unfortunately is mine, that has gone wrong. I am sending a new one to them tomorrow. They also have an IR lamp that is going to be installed, so you may be able to see some thing at night.

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webcams

I hope when I turned the camera over that some…

I hope when I turned the camera over, that some of you saw the Badger trying to get peanuts out of the Bird feeder. To get to where it was, it needed to climb a tree. I suppose it was about seven feet off of the ground. It would not have been over hard to climb, but I was surprised that it managed to get to the feeders. The tree fell over last year. It s old variety of apple from the old Cider Orchard that most Somerset Farms would have had to make their own cider. There are about six Apple trees on the bank where the Badger Sett is. They are very old. As the trees on the bank get old their roots get weaker and they start to slip down the bank, that is very steep, and between thirty to forty feet high from the path that you some times you see the Fox, Rabbits and Pheasants feeding below the other feeder that we show. I regularly slip from top to bottom when the ground is wet after rain.

The Badgers were out quite early tonight. A couple of this years Cubs were being a bit brave and were waiting in the open for me to put the food down. I shook the feed bags a couple of times and they ran back to the Sett. The new camera on the set did not go over to IR mode last night and I had to replace it this morning. Unfortunately I did not get the focus right. As it is a fixed camera I have to adjust the focus on at the camera. I will get it adjusted correctly for tomorrow. The position look about right, and it should allow a better view when the Badgers are playing by the sett entrance. I will get the other camera up to show the back of were the Badgers come out of the hedge. I will also try to get a microphone going.

The Badgers are increasing the size of their Sett. The bank where it is fifty feet plus in length. Most of it is the Sett. It is very steep ground that other than trees would be little use in farming. We need to watch that sett is not going to far into the field at the top of the bank. When I was fixing the new camera my feet went down a few holes that had been dug. They cant be seen when the grass is long, so we are unable to put the horses in the field unless we electric fence off all along the top of the bank where the holes are.

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webcams

Tass and kye came in this afternoon with a pigeon…

Tass and kye came in this afternoon with a pigeon nestling in Tass’s mouth. When we are indoors the dogs rarely go more than a few yards from the door, so the nest could only have been very close, unless a Magpie had robbed a nest and Tass and Kye had frightened it off. It could well have been that, as the nestling had a few marks on its neck and body. Tass has on a number of occasions come in the house with nestlings in her mouth. She is very gentle and normally they are not marked. This was the first time that I have seen a pigeon nestling so close, other that on the web cams. With the shape of its feet and beak, it reminded me of picture I have seen in books of a Dodo. We looked around to try to find the nest that it had fallen from without any success. We found one nest that if the Adults had been looking for it, would have found it, but I don’t hold out much hope.

When I spoke to the Manager of The Lock of the Lowe’s centre about week back, he to me then that the Osprey chicks would be fledgling in about two week. So it should be in about a weeks time. They do return to the nest for quite a while after. I had hoped to have seen the new camera up by now. The Centre Manager was hoping to have it working by the time that they had left the nest. If he does we should be able to see them learning how to fish.

The camera that is working at the Butterfly Farm is now positioned on to Locusts. The focus is not very good, but know that they are trying to get it better.

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webcams

At Rye Harbour last night we had a big thunderstorm…

At Rye Harbour last night we had a big thunderstorm and lots of rain… and power cuts, so that explains why our webcams went black for a while. I was concerned that the Common Tern chicks might have suffered, but they all look OK this morning. There are 3 types of food being brought in, long silver sand eels, other shorter silver fish and brown shrimps, but the sand eels are the best food for growing chicks. The older chicks are now moving around quite a bit, but they quickly recognise their parents bringing back food and beg to get noticed! Barry. Rye Harbour.

I have moved the camera from the Swallows nest that the fledgling have just left. The fledglings are returning to the barn of a night. The three of them a doing well, unfortunately they are not going into the nest. It would have been nice to have seen them, but the camera would be better used on another nest. The camera is now looking at the first nest that I tried to show, that was built onto the electrical junction box. There are five eggs in the nest. Two of them have been there for some time and I should think that they are not fertile. Three other eggs have been laid recently, but I am not over confident that they are fertile either. The adults are returning to the nest and sitting on the eggs, so there must be a chance that they will hatch. I will leave the camera in the place it is for a week, whilst the adults are returning, unless I find another nest, then I will change it over.

The Jay is a colourful Bird, we do get them on the farm on the feeders, about this time of the year for maybe a couple of months, but rarely other than that. They are from the same family as the Magpie. As the Magpie they raid other Birds nests for both the nestlings and eggs. Where the Magpie rarely feeds from the Bird feeders, the Jays always do. As colourful as they are I would prefer that they went else where.

Willow does look good on camera, but she is loosing her baby coat, and looks very moth eaten. If you saw her you would think that she had been bitten, or that she was not being looked after. When we put her into the field after being in for her feed, Bliss and Misty wait most time for her at the gate, all three walking off together, Willow not concerned that Lady is not with her. We have started to put two bowls of feed in the stable, as yesterday I noticed that Lady was pushing Willow away a little.

We are going to try to let Breeze run with the rest of the Horses tomorrow. She has been penned off on her own for nearly two weeks. We don’t like doing it to her. Being the leader of the Herd, she tries to boss Lady about. When we first let Lady and Willow in with Breeze, when they came back from the stud, we had a bit of a kicking session and it could have become dangerous for Willow. Hopefully with them all of them being in the same field together, with Breeze on her own in an electric fenced off area she will get use to them. She did last year. After a bit of galloping about they settled and there was no more problems.

After speaking to the Butterfly Farm the camera started going. They are waiting for a new Queen for the Leaf Cutter Ants, so you may only see the odd one on the rope until it arrives.

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webcams

I am surprised that the Swallow fledglings have not returned…

I am surprised that the Swallow fledglings have not returned to the nest this evening, it could be that it is a little early. it will be unusual for them not to return, as all of the other nest that I have shown, they have return for a week or more. The Adults on the other nest you can see are still incubating the eggs. I don’t believe that it will be too long until the eggs hatch. Once they are I will put a light in the barn of a daytime, so that you can see it better. I don’t want to put the light in to soon in case it disturbs the Birds. Also when the eggs have hatched, I will be able to move the camera to another position in the barn, to where a Dove is nesting. Putting the camera up to watch the new nest was quite difficult. As you may have noticed it is in the apex of the barn roof, bit of an awkward place and very high, not the sort of place that i really want to have to install a camera. As soon as I know for certain that the other nest is not being used, I will change the camera from there, to another nest in that barn.

Karen asked how I got started in doing the web cams. Initially it was to promote our holiday cottages. As it turned out it cost me a lot more money than I had expected it to be, probably any money we made on letting the cottages, was spent on the web cams. When we started about four years ago there where very web cams to be seen. None for wildlife, other than the odd Bird Table and they were updating, some as long as every half an hour. With web cam technology in its infancy, there was very little advice to be found, and it really was a case of hit and miss. The easy option was to have had updating images, but I really cant watch them. If I was to do web cams I wanted them to be 24/7 real-time live. Unless I could have achieve that I would not do them. Eventually I did get it up and running and realised that as we were doing as well as we were, I should try to start the WBC site. It does cost a substantial amount of money to purchase the equipment for the broadcasting. The pan, tilt and zoom cameras, with the controllers and ancillary items cost in the region of

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webcams

We managed to get one of the two new cameras…

We managed to get one of the two new cameras up and working today. It is a fixed camera that is positioned to look at where the Badgers come out to feed. As you see the Badgers come into view the sett entrance is just a matter of inches away. It has taken a couple of days to run the wires and fit the camera and other parts needed to get it working. The wires have to run in the trees and all along the Badger runs, that they use to get to one sett entrance to another. It has to be got into the roof space of the farm house, then about forty feet in the loft before being run to the ground floor of the house, out of site. Not a job I particularly like. To make matters worse the runs of sett are through bramble. I finish up being scratch from head to toe. The picture will probably need adjusting once I see how it looks tonight. I will be showing it on different cameras, including the Swallow camera. It should be a good position as often the Badgers use the spot it is positioned on, to play and socialise, the trees hide that area from the main camera. Let me know what you think.

As long as the piece of equipment I have works, I will try tomorrow to fit another camera to the rear of the entrance. The piece of equipment hopefully will allow me to put two signals over one wire, so two cameras should work. The manufacturers reckon it will, let hope they are right as the equipment is a few hundred pounds. I will be jumping about if it doesn’t. If it does work we should be able to see more of the Badgers. I am also going to put molasses onto the jump. I should think that they will like the taste, if they do it will keep them out longer.

I have been watching the new camera as I am writing the Diary, and can see what needs doing to make it better. For the next few days you may see that I have been trying different angles and height,

Anjela asked about the Rats around the lake. The Rats ate a lot of the poison, and as they had not eaten any for a couple of days, I moved the cage to the area of camera one. As much as I did not want to put the poison down in that area, I really had little option. I tried various other ways of getting rid of them, that were a waste of time. There were to many large Rats to allow them to keep breeding, without me doing any thing about it. They started to take the poison today. It will take a good while to clear the area. I will have to start checking two or three times a day to make sure no animals or birds eat any of them. I wanted to put the cage by the Bird feeders around the lake, that will have to wait until I can get my hands on a new cage, or the one I have got is able to be put there. To make sure that the Birds do not eat the poison I manage to get an old Magpie cage trap. Inside of that I put a petrol can with holes at each end. The Rats need to go into the cage and then into the can to get the poison. I have also covered the cage up with a piece of plastic with room at the bottom for the Rats to go under.

There are a few breaks in the clouds tonight, not enough t put the telescope on, but I maybe able to try the piece of equipment that was sent to me from the US.

Elsie, didn’t get the photos.