Using A Bird Box Camera: #3 MythBusters

One thing I particularly enjoy about observing garden birds, is witnessing behaviour I've never seen before.

Even better, is when the experts say that a certain kind of bird always does this, but you see one doing the opposite.

When I was a kid, the natural world was expressed in very simple terms. The Lion was the king of the African jungle.

But thanks to hours of observation and filming, often under very difficult conditions, we now know that hyaenas and even buffalo sometimes get the better of lions. And that the largest African animal (the elephant) has to run away from one of the smallest creatures (the bee).

Robin Box 2013: Our First [Avian] Visitor

There have been regular nocturnal visits to our robin box by mice since the 9th January.

 

The mouse or mice in question are probably just foraging for food, as there does not appear to be any attempt to set up home.

But on the last day of January, our camera captured the first bird to visit the box this year ....a robin.

The [not so] EasyCap for Linux

An EasyCap is a USB device that connects a composite video source (like an "analogue" cctv camera) to a computer.

The name "EasyCap" is not really a product name, because there are so many companies making copies of the original device. In fact one company (ClimaxDigital) got so fed up with the number of bad copies in circulation, that it change its branding to EzCAP, and more recently, dropped the name completely.

So you don't really know what you are getting when you order one of these. Its only when you connect it to your Linux computer and type "lsusb" that you discover what is inside.

My Smart-arse Sony TV

Just before Christmas I finally plucked up the courage to get rid of the huge TV in our living room.

This must have been one of the last TVs with a proper 4:3 Cathode Ray Tube (crt) that Currys sold. It was enormous.

The neck of the tube stuck out the back so far that we had to sit in the drive-way and watch the TV through the window. It was either that or wedge ourselves into the 10inch gap between the TV screen and the wall. But with our noses pressed up against the screen, it was only possible to take in about 20% of the action.

I hate throwing away working machines, but no one was interested in this fully functional monster. So I loaded it into the back of a truck and took it to the local tip.

Using a Bird Box Camera: #2 Alarms & Recording

So you've installed a camera in your bird box and you can now relax and wait for your first visitors, and your first exciting glimpse of the private lives of garden birds.

 

But wait a minute! You don't have the time or the patience to sit in front of your tv, staring at a never changing image, waiting for something to happen.

If you are to avoid going crazy, you need a strategy. So here are a few suggestions.

Robin Box 2013: Our First Visitor

The 2013 nesting season wont really get underway for another couple of months, but I've already switched on the system.

 

Unfortunately, the old Compaq computer that is at the heart of the system didn't want to start, so I had to wheel-in a spare.

 

For 2013 we will probably only have one camera equipped bird box, our open fronted Robin box. This has been very successful in previous seasons, and in 2012 a pair of robins had two sessions, laying 5 eggs each time, raising 9 chicks successfully. They were all set for a third attempt, but unfortunately one of the adults just disappeared.

KiddiePi: It's childs play!

Actually, strike out the word "play" from above.

By watching my own kids, and now my grand-children, I've come to the conclusion that very young children are pre-programmed to EXPLORE the world via touch, taste, smell and hearing, while play and learning are just by-products.

 

Children, especially under 3 year olds, just soak up information like a dry sponge in a shower.

This post presents some of my ideas on creating a simple computer based "toy" to engage very young children, which will hopefully develop as they do.

External Drive Network Share on Linux

If you have a home server or just a box that is left on most of the time, you may want to add an external drive and share the contents over the network.

This post is written for Lubuntu using an attached memory stick, but you should be able to follow this procedure for other Linux distros.

Lubuntu is a light-weight Linux distro, so you may find there are packages missing which are required for proper network operation. Consequently, I suggest you set your Lubuntu box for networking using the method I've detailed here.

Clonezilla, its not really that scary!

Whether you are running Linux or Windows, its a good idea to clone your system before upgrading your system software, or doing anything that may brick your system.

Its easy to create a clone of your current system which you can then use to re-image your computer, in the event of a problem.

However, it should go without saying that re-imaging is a destructive process. The whole computer hard drive is going to be re-written when you restore an image.