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Post by matt on Feb 10, 2022 14:11:40 GMT
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Not much to report yet. 6 boxes up, 4 are exactly the same as last year, with a new starling box in place of one of the concrete ones and a relocated robin box (under eaves of shed). Not a sniff of interest in either of the new boxes so far, which have been up since before Christmas! A few odd visits to the other boxes, but nothing too serious yet - although I did get a strange round of double (two bird) visits to a few of the bluetit boxes about a month ago.
Spring seems to be arriving a little earlier than last year for me, with frogs starting their spawning about 2 weeks earlier than 2021. Whether that means we have an earlier spring in store, I wouldn't like to guess - I hope the frogs have got it right tho!
Will post more as and when visits increase (I hope!).
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Post by pete11 on Feb 10, 2022 21:09:50 GMT
Good luck for the spring Matt. Still haven’t put my new (2nd) box up! Going to do it this weekend and hope for the best. Your observations seem to match what I’ve seen so far - although my lone (male?) GT rooster does seem v. protective of the existing box and keeps popping back during the day a couple of times as if to keep an eye on it. It’d be just my luck if he’s just guarding his bed and nothing more!
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2022 13:05:46 GMT
Well I didn't have too much to report until now, just occasional visits from bluetits to 3 of the boxes, but perhaps not as many as last year during Feb for which I blame the weather! This morning I had a nice surprise - the first serious activity from starlings in the starling concrete box. Last year I had quite a few starlings poke their heads through the hole, but one never went right inside. This morning one did, about 15 times over the course of a couple of hours, and even had double visits with a starling in the box and another looking through the hole. I assume male/female pair, but don't know enough about starlings (yet!). On one visit the starling brought a tiny amount of material in - here is the video of that visit. All quiet since the couple of hours intense activity this morning, but fingers crossed for more over the next few days - this is already way, way more activity than I got last year. Not exactly sure when they start building.
In other nesting news, we have a blackbird busy building in the ivy - no camera nearby, unfortunately.
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Post by pete11 on Feb 27, 2022 13:48:47 GMT
Great news Matt. Look forward to more clips of those starlings. Quite fascinating!
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2022 14:00:21 GMT
Thanks Pete, yeah really hoping something happens with the starlings now! Would be a first for me, and not one we often get on this board, although there were a couple of starling nests last year as I remember. It does look quite a tight squeeze - both through the hole and inside the box - but the box is based on dimensions of a popular starling box so I assume it will be enough. Could be cosy if there is a brood of chicks in there tho!!
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Post by pete11 on Feb 27, 2022 14:05:56 GMT
Yes kind of looks on the narrow side but as you say could be an advantage. What camera do you have in there? Any light, too?
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2022 14:20:02 GMT
Pi camera (just a v1 knock off from memory) and some led strip leds driven by the Pi. There is an annoying cobweb in front of the camera that has been there for months - will try and get rid today, thought I had plenty of time to get it sorted..
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2022 14:38:15 GMT
One other quick update - a fleeting visit by a jenny wren to the "robin box". This box hasn't had any interest in it at all, and I had to turn the detector off on it because leaves kept triggering it - but I was lucky enough to spot this wren pop in this morning (but not quick enough to get an image whilst she was actually inside..). Interesting, and at least something has found it. We had a wren nest in jasmine very near to this box last year..
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Post by pete11 on Feb 27, 2022 15:30:00 GMT
Surprisingly decent picture quality from your pi cam. Are you recording on a pi, too?
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2022 15:46:48 GMT
You can get some great pics with the pi cam, which are the only cams I have in the box. Even better pics if you stop the video and take a few stills - here's one from last year:
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Post by pete11 on Feb 27, 2022 16:20:24 GMT
Wow that's fab. I might have to get my raspberry pi thinking cap on for next year. Do you stow your pi locally in the box? I'm guessing you must do as the camera's attached to it. POE hat or a separate power supply?
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Post by karenupnorth on Feb 27, 2022 17:10:50 GMT
Very exciting update Matt, look forward to seeing what develops over the coming weeks, hard to believe it is March on Tuesday. Hope the 2022 season is a cracker.
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2022 17:22:06 GMT
Very exciting update Matt, look forward to seeing what develops over the coming weeks, hard to believe it is March on Tuesday. Hope the 2022 season is a cracker. Yep, we're getting close Karen!
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Post by matt on Feb 28, 2022 8:57:33 GMT
Wow that's fab. I might have to get my raspberry pi thinking cap on for next year. Do you stow your pi locally in the box? I'm guessing you must do as the camera's attached to it. POE hat or a separate power supply? Yes, Pi in the box - something like this: Lights just 5v LED strip driven by same power supply as the Pi and switched on and off by a script on the pi (roughly dawn/dusk). No IR any more, so no night vision - not a huge loss IMO as not much happens at night (have tried IR and IR cut cameras in the past but went for simplicity in the end). I don't have any POE hats but do run a couple off POE using a clever little adapter that takes POE and puts out power and network on a single micro usb. Also run a couple of adapters that take (unpowered) network and power separately, and put both onto one micro USB, and a couple just run on Wifi (wired is preferred!). Lots more action this morning in bluetit boxes and the starling box, I suspect things might be a little earlier this year than last based on the weather and other things going on in the garden - e.g. our frog spawn was two weeks earlier than last.
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Post by matt on Feb 28, 2022 17:39:18 GMT
Plenty more action from the starlings today, and some more leaves brought in by what I am fairly certain is a male. I've been having a bit of a read around on starling nesting behaviour, and apparently the male finds the nest site and then brings in leaves and bits and pieces to try and lure in a female. If he gets lucky, the female will typically remove it all and build her own nest! Very interesting to watch, anyway, and it means we are still some way off any nest building if indeed it gets that far. Apparently you can tell males/females by blueish/reddish base of the beak, and I think I have seen that difference over the last couple of days, with male inside the box and female occasionally outside (and not always the same one, judging by beak colouration).
Here's a vid of himself coming in with a few more leaves this morning:
Lots more visits from the bluetits today, including double visits. It feels like we are getting close, but nesting for me has always been April or later (last year didn't kick off until late April I think).
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Post by pete11 on Feb 28, 2022 17:49:31 GMT
Yes, Pi in the box - something like this: That all looks very well constructed and neat! Very impressive! I’ve just got one pi recording my two camera streams using ffmpeg scheduled via crontab. If there wasn’t a chip shortage at the mo I’d be ordering more pis to play around with- and cameras. I feel it’s got to be the way forward for total control The off the shelf cameras work ok but the apps are rubbish and very limited. I think my first big step later this year is to drill a hole in my back wall and shove some ethernet through it out to the garden.
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Post by matt on Feb 28, 2022 17:55:37 GMT
I used to set the pi's to record themselves on motion, which worked OK but meant I had to manually retrieve the files etc. Now I have them all streaming video via v4l2rtspserver to iSpyConnect (free) video surveillance software, and I watch everything live on the web browser. It has motion detection too, which is OK (not great - lots of false positives). I dial down the FPS because it gets too much for my PC (which I am also working on), and then if I do get a nest I might stream it straight from the pi to Youtube as I did last year. Here's the iSpy interface - this is from this morning when I actually had birds in two boxes at once, which is rare!
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Post by pete11 on Feb 28, 2022 20:44:40 GMT
Looks good. I'm avoiding viewing on PC software myself as I'm not sitting at the screen long enough during the day for it to be useful - plus if I had nesting happening I might not be able to tear myself away! I'd like to create a YouTube livestream though if I was lucky enough to get a nest. Not sure my powerline adapter out in the garden has enough bandwidth to support unicast to my pi for recording and then unicast again for streaming to YouTube, etc. All stuff I need to research more
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Post by WildlifePaul on Feb 28, 2022 21:43:59 GMT
Oh matt, I would love for you to get a starling nest come on!!
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Post by matt on Feb 28, 2022 22:14:11 GMT
Fingers crossed Paul! Crazy activity compared to last year, I assume the male at least quite likes it - hopefully he can get it together, bring in some high quality leaves and get these ladies charmed!
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Post by matt on Feb 28, 2022 22:16:36 GMT
Looks good. I'm avoiding viewing on PC software myself as I'm not sitting at the screen long enough during the day for it to be useful - plus if I had nesting happening I might not be able to tear myself away! I'd like to create a YouTube livestream though if I was lucky enough to get a nest. Not sure my powerline adapter out in the garden has enough bandwidth to support unicast to my pi for recording and then unicast again for streaming to YouTube, etc. All stuff I need to research more I found that my limiting factor was unfortunately our internet upload speed - only about 8-10 Mb (should be more I believe). This means 1 stream max (wishful thinking, I've only ever had one nest at once before!), but you might well find that your local network is more than fast enough. Easy to do with a single ffmpeg command straight from the pi as well - if you get a nest going and want to give it a try then I will try to help if you need it.
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Post by pete11 on Feb 28, 2022 22:24:59 GMT
Cheers for the offer Matt. Similar to you my upload speed usually tops out around 9Mbps at best. Be useful to know what your procedure is though.
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Post by matt on Mar 1, 2022 9:12:02 GMT
Plenty more activity this morning from the starlings, including both birds in the box together for the first time (cosy!): The male continues to bring bits and pieces in, much more this morning than before including twigs, bits of grass, more leaves etc.. I wonder how long all of this goes on before decision time/proper nest building begins? Exciting to watch, anyway! Here's how much stuff he has brought in:
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Post by karenupnorth on Mar 1, 2022 11:59:20 GMT
Brilliant Matt keep at it Mr Starling!
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Post by matt on Mar 1, 2022 13:47:13 GMT
Another vid of him bringing in a stick and a few more leaves. Better resolution on this one - I realised I had cut the res for the iSpy software to save on processing power, so I have changed it back. I really hope he is able to attract a mate! He is definitely getting quite into the nesting wriggles as well!
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