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March 17, 2008
VIDEOCAM: Duck box wired
The wood-duck nesting box is 
now rewired with a new videocam, and while it doesn't seem to perform as well as the owl cam, at least we can see what is going on in the box.
Installation was fairly easy. All my friend Mike and I had to do was put the cam in the box and run a wire to the the digital video recorder that I had hooked up.
We had a surprise as soon as we opened the box.
Click "Continue reading" for more…
Inside the box was a dead mouse — which explained why my wife and I could see an owl after dark fly up to the box every so often.
I checked the cam this morning and the mouse was gone. But a dead mole was in its place.
We have had a screech owl in the owl box fairly regularly, but there are no guarantees that the owls will choose our box for a nest.
We shall find out in early April.
Last year the female wood duck moved in to her box in mid-April. Maybe this year we'll have a better idea of what is going on inside the box.
4 comments
-
That’s exciting… Good luck… How is your picture quality, and what kind of camera do you have?
As for the owl, if she likes the spot, she may well be back… You just never know… -
Mixed news:
There were leaves seen through our owl box opening and I knew that we had a resident squirrel this winter. With that in mind we opened the box up for cleaning and for camera installation with past weekend. Oops. Scared the owl (AND JEFF!) Now the camera is up and we are wired. We just need to install “something” to hook it to the computer. Jeff is still researching which “something” to order. (We have a Mac if anyone has any suggestions.) We tested the cam on the TV and everything looks good. The box now has wonderful new soft wood chips in it, so we hope Mrs Owl will be back soon, if she isn’t already. Poor thing. Jeff felt really bad.
-D -
Last year, the first egg arrive on April first and fourth egg roughly 10 days later.
Owls can be unpredictable. Owk box watchers all say different things. If you haven’t had any activity since November, it may not be looking good, but that is only a guess.
But you should have had activity between then and now…
By the way, I activated my monitor at 10:30 last night and saw an owl inside the box. Other times an owl has entered the box a bit after dark — impossible to see without a nestcam. So go figure. -
When do your Screech owls start nesting? I assumed that the eggs would be laid by Mid-March? I haven’t had any action so ’08 may be a bust for me. I guess I scared the daylights out of the little guy in November when I checked the box….. I guess you live and learn. Now that I have the camera I have no need to check the box physically, but I guess the owls don’t know that 😉
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4 comments
jim wright
That’s exciting… Good luck… How is your picture quality, and what kind of camera do you have?
As for the owl, if she likes the spot, she may well be back… You just never know…
Diana & Jeff
Mixed news:
There were leaves seen through our owl box opening and I knew that we had a resident squirrel this winter. With that in mind we opened the box up for cleaning and for camera installation with past weekend. Oops. Scared the owl (AND JEFF!) Now the camera is up and we are wired. We just need to install “something” to hook it to the computer. Jeff is still researching which “something” to order. (We have a Mac if anyone has any suggestions.) We tested the cam on the TV and everything looks good. The box now has wonderful new soft wood chips in it, so we hope Mrs Owl will be back soon, if she isn’t already. Poor thing. Jeff felt really bad.
-D
jim wright
Last year, the first egg arrive on April first and fourth egg roughly 10 days later.
Owls can be unpredictable. Owk box watchers all say different things. If you haven’t had any activity since November, it may not be looking good, but that is only a guess.
But you should have had activity between then and now…
By the way, I activated my monitor at 10:30 last night and saw an owl inside the box. Other times an owl has entered the box a bit after dark — impossible to see without a nestcam. So go figure.
Owlman
When do your Screech owls start nesting? I assumed that the eggs would be laid by Mid-March? I haven’t had any action so ’08 may be a bust for me. I guess I scared the daylights out of the little guy in November when I checked the box….. I guess you live and learn. Now that I have the camera I have no need to check the box physically, but I guess the owls don’t know that 😉