BirdBox 2015: eight chicks face the world

During the week, all 8 of our blue tit chicks left the security of the nest box.

 

We have been away for a few days, so missed all the excitement, but have been able to catch up with the story, thanks to the video and data saved on the Raspberry Pi camera system.

We have not seen much of the blue tit family since we got back, but I did see about 6 of the chicks plus the two parents feeding in the apple tree this morning.

Raspberry Pi Serial Comms: Gambas + wiringPi

I've been playing around with serial comms on my Pi/Picaxe dev rig.

Using Gordon's wiringPi library makes it easy to open the gpio serial comms port on the Pi and write code with Gambas.

So this post involves writing a simple Picaxe program, and then using wiringPi and Gambas on the Pi to communicate with the Picaxe.

BirdBox2015: who's she?

A few more days of feeding and the chicks continue to grow.

They are now about two thirds of the way through their time in the nest, with a predicted departure day of next Tuesday (26th May).

And we still seem to have 8 healthy looking chicks, and 2 very capable parents.

BirdBox2015: chicks are doing well

It is now just over a week since the blue tit chicks hatched out and started demanding food.

They seem to be growing fast and are starting to look like prototype birds.

And by this weekend they will be half way through this stage, with only around 10 days left before leaving the nest and having to face the world outside.

Picaxe Programming with Pi

You can write Picaxe programs, compile and download to the device using Windows or Linux x86/64.

And it is also possible to use a Raspberry Pi and a few cheap components to develop and load your programs to a Picaxe.

This brief post describes how.

BirdBox2015: It's a girl!

OK, so its not a princess, but the arrival of chicks in the blue tit nest is of more interest in this house than a royal baby + a general election.

They must have started hatching over night, and by 6am Thursday morning there were at least 4 chicks in among the remaining eggs.

So let's hope that both parents and chicks can survive for the next few weeks and successfully fledge!

RaspberryPi, Serial Comms & PHP

I've been playing around with serial comms on 2 Raspberry Pi computers for the last couple of days.

And I now understand a little of the black-art required to get this working, including how to send serial data via a PHP web page.

So I thought I'd write up the details before I have time to forget it all again!