O-Town Birdcam

RICHARD: For the last few winters, we've put up a bird feeder in front of our big picture window and trained a FireWire video camera on it. This camera feeds digital video into an Apple Power Macintosh running a program called EvoCam, which automatically captures the camera image at 10-second intervals and uploads them to our Web server. EvoCam is able to record the images into a single movie clip, and that's what you will see here.

In late 2003, this feeder was destroyed by a bear (we think), which bent the steel pole down to the ground and ripped apart the feeder to get at the suet you see in the cage on the front of the feeder. Due to popular demand, we've since replaced the feeder and set the BirdCam up again.

Some of the birds you can see in the clip include male and female Cardinals; the Tufted Titmouse; Starlings; male and female Hairy, Downy, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers; the White-breasted Nuthatch; Black-capped Chickadees; Juncos; Bluejays; House Wrens; Crows; and several species of Sparrows. The huge bird you on top of the feeder is a wild Turkey, probably a female. Total Duration: 3'39"

NOTE: This clip is a timelapse movie recorded from the O-Town BirdCam on January 5, 2003, from about 8 AM to 5 PM. The Birdcam ran every year right through winter 2011.