06/05/25 It appears this might be the first time one of the chicks ventured out of the cavity. It was last night around 8:30PM. The video is a little over 3.5 minutes and at the end it appears that the chick tried returning and may have missed the cavity lip (see another chick looking down). However, all 3 are in the cavity so it made it back somehow… Pete
05/19/25
From early this AM. Methinks a VERY brave mouse… Pete
05/08/25 The Cavity Cam is FINALLY back up!!! I’m really sorry for all the down time, but this snafu was a bit of an enigma… Pete
05/02/25 Well, I went up this afternoon and while I discovered the camera power supply was bad and replaced it the video still didn’t start playing. Sigh. Anyway I’ll troubleshoot some more this weekend or perhaps on Monday. Very frustrating to say the least. But in the meantime here’s a short vid of the 3 chicks.
They look great and are certainly downy enough to stay warm until the female returns. And I also left a few mice. But again, while I think that we all know by now that I won’t interfere with them in general, this was just a “Sorry for bothering you…” offering. Pete
04/25/25 Turns out that I’m going to have to go up to the cavity to see if I can get the cam working again. So here’s my plan: Next Wednesday 4/30 the youngest chick should be 3 weeks old which should be about the time the female starts being able to go out to hunt too, i.e. not having to stay there to keep the chicks warm. In fact, if any of you have in your notes the post-hatching dates she’s started to leave in past years, please email them to me. Any case, if we have a warm day I plan to go up there just before dark to see if I can fix things. Something else, and I know this may be difficult, but if any of you see BOTH of them on the limb – or any other way that indicates they’re BOTH out of the cavity – please let me know. This will definitely confirm that I can go up there and not bump her from brooding the chicks. But, again, I’ll make sure the day has been warm and will go up right before it gets dark. Right now I’m thinking Friday, May 2. Thanks. Pete.
04/20/25 There’s something I’ve yet to figure out that causing the cavity cam to not function. While it should have restarted on its own after our power outage it’s not. Jorge’s checked the configs that allow streaming and they’re working fine – this is why you can see “ALIBI” on the screen, which is the name of the digitizer. So the problem must be with the cam between the cavity and the servers. But this presents a problem because if it’s at the cavity I don’t want to go up there while she’s brooding the small chicks and bump her off. Any case, I’ll keep testing and trying to repair things from the ground. Wish me luck… And I’m really sorry about these snafus that seem to coming often these days. Pete
04/16/25 Ugh, I’m having trouble getting the Cavity Cam streaming again after a short power outage we had last night. I’ve contacted Jorge and I’m confident that he’ll be able to troubleshoot this better than me and get it fixed. Any case, we’re on it. Pete
04/15/25 3:30 PM PST Cox Communication will be shutting down our internet and telephones starting around 4PM today for updates, service, etc. and they may not be restored until late tonight. So if the cams are down during this time that’s likely the reason. Pete
04/8/25 12PM PST IMPORTANT By now I suspect you all know that I had a major meltdown with the Starr Ranch website, including this BNOW cam page. But if you can see this, at least it’s been partly fixed. In the meantime Gretchen is going to try to drill deep and restore this page so that the comments are current and not missing the last two years or so… Though she might not be able to get to this until Thursday 4/10. But feel free to comment now as usual; they should appear normally. I’m also about to try to restore the 4 video feeds. So if you don’t see them now please wait a bit and refresh the page. I’m hoping I’ll have this done before 1PM PST.
Sorry about all this and thanks for your understanding and patience. Pete
1/23/23 I have been working with Jorge to try to fix all the cams. But the problems are a little bit baffling. I still don’t know why the Trail and the Limb cam aren’t working and Jorge recently identified a failed hard drive in the PC that powers the Cavity and Bat cams. So I’m trying to deal with all this but the fixes haven’t been straight forward. Sigh… Pete
8/22/22 Hey y’all, I’m really sorry about all the cam probs and will try to fix them ASAP. Was taking a little vacay last week but now am back in the saddle. Any case, I think the Cavity and Bat cam are now back up after a little switcher meltdown that I luckily was able to quickly fix. But the Trail and Limb cams are still frustrating me about why they aren’t working. Nonetheless will try to focus more on fixing them tomorrow. Thanks again for your patience. Pete
8/8/22 Trail and Limb cam update. I’m having a lot of trouble trying to isolate why these cams aren’t working again. Typically, when we have a power outage they automatically come back online when power is restored. But this time it didn’t happen and I have yet to figure out why not. I will keep trying and appreciate your patience. BTW, being so darn hot here these days just adds to my frustration… Thanks, Pete
8/6/22 OK, the Cavity AND Bat cams should now both be back up, though I still need to troubleshoot the Nest Cams that are on the Limb and Trail. I’m quite sure I’ll figure them out, but for now that they didn’t automatically come back after our power was restored baffles me. Stay tuned… Thanks, Pete
8/4/22 Tomorrow, Friday August 5, SCEdison will be cutting off our power to do some maintenance. This will likely be between 9AM and 3PM PST, so the cams will be off. When power is restored it will take me a bit to recreate the YouTube Cavity and Bat cam URLS and restore them to the page. Thanks.
Pete
3/4/22 I cleaned the bat cam lens today so hopefully you now have a clearer view of the box. Am also looking into buying a new cavity cam that has a built in mic so I can replace the current cam and not have to deal with a separate mic. So stay tuned. In meantime pls know I’m peddling as fast as I can… Thanks. Pete
1/28/22 I’m really sorry, folks. I’m just having a lot of trouble getting the cavity cam to show again on the page. Jorge and I are in touch so hopefully will be able to figure out soon. Pete
1/27/22 Sorry, but I’m having trouble getting the Cavity and Batbox cam YouTube feeds restarted after our power was restored around 4:30PM PST today. I just contacted Jorge who I know will be able to bail me out of this mess as he always has… In the meantime, thanks for your patience. Pete
1/27/22 Cams will be down for most of today as SC Edison replaces a power pole. Should be back up again around 5PM PST. Pete
12/09/21 We have been part of the CA Mountain Lion Project for a very long time with many cougars having been GPS collared at Starr Ranch and, as of last count, at least 5 using Starr Ranch’s Bell Canyon as a major movement corridor. Recently, The CMLP partnered with FLOAT to try to raise a few bucks via T-shirt sales. So if interested, visit: https://float.org/collections/california-mountain-lion-project. Thanks, Pete
11/28/21 Cavity cam should be back up. Sorry for the delay. As usual, Jorge helped walk me though the process once again… Only thing left to do is try to figure out why the Cavity and Bat cams don’t auto play when you load the page. Pete
11/26/21 Our power is back on as of 11AM PST and I was able to recreate the YouTube stream for the Bat Cam and get it back up. But am having trouble with the Cavity Cam. May turn out to be a cam hardware problem. Any case, I’ll attack this problem early next week. Will be a lot of cleaning up of wiring and connections, which I hope are the easy fixes to the current problem as well as the flaky audio and interference often seen on the video. Never a dull moment… Pete
11/25/21 Cams are down due to high winds staring last night and SCEdison cut our power for fire/safety reasons (There’s a 12KV power line that provides us our electricity running over almost a mile of dry grass and coastal sage scrub – so we get it…) Any case, winds are supposed to be calm again by tomorrow AM (Friday). If so, and and as soon as we get our electricity back, I’ll relaunch the cams. Pete
11/12/21 Thanks to some tips from scylla and Jorge – and me finally realizing that I had copied the wrong link, DOH!!! – all 4 cams should be up again. Sorry for the delay. Pete
11/11/21 Still having problems getting new YouTube feeds going for the Cavity and Bat cams. At least Firefox doesn’t like it although it was just a cut and paste of a new URL over an old one. Pete
11/10/21 I’m having trouble relaunching the Cavity and Bat Box streams. I’ve contacted Jorge, who as we all know is a whiz at this. So I suspect he’ll get them back up ASAP. Pete
11/9/21 SC Edison has to do a pole repair at Starr Ranch so our power will be down today from about 11AM thru 3PM PST. All cams will be off during this time. Also, it may take me a while to get two of the feeds back up that use YouTube streaming once the power comes back on. They’ll need new URLs. Thanks, Pete
8/12/21 I just took the HOFI cam offline and will put it back up if/when the HOFI’s return next spring. Chances are high that they will. Pete
5/11/21 I just took the Trail Cam offline and replaced it with a House Finch cam for now. I just noticed today that the HOFI’s had a nest at our office and, as luck would have it, the cam from last season was already in place. However, I’ll still monitor the trail cam and post vids when something interesting walks by. Like Earlier this Morning…
3/16/21 Interesting that the male has been a no-show for a while. Could be something happened to him, but also could be that he’s getting in the “mode” of roosting outside the cavity as he eventually has in the past as chicks start hatching and it starts to get a little crowded in the cavity. However, it seems a bit early for that. Any case, let’s just see how things unfold. Pete
3/14/21 Hmmmm, 32 days since first egg laid? First hatch should be soon…
In meantime, for those who sent me their t-shirt info as part of your egg pledge I need a little more time than anticipated to send them to you. I’m reluctant to go to the post office due to this covid mess. However, I’m fully set up at the ranch to weigh and print correct postage. The down side is that the USPS is getting pickier about what they’ll allow to be left at our mailbox for pickup. They’ve twice returned a t-shirt to Wynne that had the correct postage. It was because it was “bulky” that they didn’t accept it (?!). And this was not done by our really great mail carrier, Tim. It had gone through the system after he picked it up so he was compelled to return it. Any case, I ask for your patience. You’ll eventually get your t-shirt. Thanks. Pete
3/3/21
Thank you EVERYONE who donated to the 2021 Egg Pledge! This means A LOT to Sandy and me and really helps Starr Ranch. And also to PLowrie who kept this all organized so well!
For those who donated $5 or more, this is the T-shirt link for you to go to so you can provide the info I need to send you a Starr Ranch T-shirt. It uses the “old” Starr Ranch website look so there might be some bad links in the right side bar. But the form should work fine.
Note: I have plenty of T-shirts except that I’m out of Short Sleeve Adult Medium. Sizes tend to run large so, if you think you’re a medium, a small would probably work. Pete
2/24/21 Latest egg dates:
#1 – 2/12/21 – 9:13 am
#2 – 2/14/21 – 12:39 pm
#3 – 2/16/21 – 5:52 pm
#4 – 2/18/21 – 9:38 pm
#5 – 2/21/21 – 2:03 am
#6 – 2/23/21 – 11:40 am
Pete
2/21/21 Thanks to all who are pledging a donation/egg or contribute to Starr Ranch in other ways! Given that Sandy and I have to raise a few hundred thousand dollars every year to keep the wheels on Starr Ranch, this all helps! Eggs laid as of today:
#1 – 2/12/21 – 9:13 am
#2 – 2/14/21 – 12:39 pm
#3 – 2/16/21 – 5:52 pm
#4 – 2/18/21 – 9:38 pm
#5 – 2/21/21 – 2:03 am
Pete
2/16/21 The Cavity and Bat Cams should now automatically play when you load the page. Jorge discovered that even if the code included the autoplay command, they wouldn’t because YouTube was reluctant to have embedded video that might have mic/audio suddenly start playing upon loading a page and blast the user with unexpected sound. So he found the code to have these two videos load with the sound defaulted to mute. Which is a non-issue because neither of these feeds has audio… Thanks, Jorge! Pete
2/7/21 Gretchen told me that the plugin that allows one to add a pic to a comment is no longer supported. So she’s looking for another one. Pete
2/6/21 The Limb cam is now running and also has an active mic in the vicinity of the cavity. But two things:
1) If you want to hear the audio make sure the mic (speaker icon) is clicked to “on” in (usually) the lower or upper right corner of the Limb cam feed.
2)There’s a longer delay before you see/hear the live Limb cam feed than the Cavity cam feed. So while you might hear audio from the Limb cam mic it likely won’t sync with the Cavity cam activity. Pete
2/1/21 This is part of the nuts and bolts needed to keep the cams going. But it’s fun for me. Love doing it. Just wish there weren’t so many tech glitches to deal with. Then again, that’s just part of the deal. Pete
1/30/21 I started working on replacing the PTZ cam today. But among other things, mice have chewed a bunch of wires so I have a lot of repairs to do and may have to pull new wires. So this may take some time. But I’m hoping that if not by tomorrow, maybe Monday things will be back to “normal” again. (But is there any such thing a “normal” any more…?) Pete
1/29/21 Trail cam change is done. Pete
1/29/21 I’m about to change the trail cam to a better, hopefully higher resolution, model so it may be down for a while. Also, when things dry out here a bit, tomorrow I’m going to go up to the cavity after dark and after the pair has left and install a static cam in place of the PTZ to view the limb activity. It will also have a mic so it should be able to pick up audio in the cavity as well. Pete
1/29/21 All – Please don’t put your email address in a comment. It’s way too easy for a bot to grab it and then start using it to spam you. If you want to get in touch with another viewer just send an email to me and I’ll email that person asking if it’s OK for me to share their email with you. I’m happy to do this. Pete
1/21/21 I’ve emailed Jorge about the constant cavity cam buffering. Will fix as soon as I hear from him. In meantime I removed the 360X270 cavity stream. Was redundant anyway and just wasting bandwidth. Pete
I’m packing up now – with all 3 still waiting to be fed, 2 on the upper branch and one peeking out of the cavity.
G’night.
4 hours later… the scene is exactly as described 4 hours earlier 😜😁🙃
The 3 owlets were lined up on the upper branch for ages, the one on the right screeching repeatedly – I did a jumpy gif to show y’owl but it won’t upload so I’ll post an Imgur link:
Oh !!!
Imgur is working again – that’ll be a game-changer if it keeps going.
IGNORE MY INFO BELOW – ALL 3 HAVE JUST EMERGED FROM THE CAVITY !!! !!! !!!
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Well I did tell y’owl I was having a hard time with it 🙃
08 JUNE EVENING
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Showing that all 3 had spent the night safely in the cavity:
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09 JUNE EARLY HOURS
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The only prey drop I found, and an owlet took a nasty tumble, I didn’t find it getting back up, and in the morning (according to me!) only ONE owlet returned to the cavity.
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My recordings are SO difficult to navigate, no idea what’s gone on, I only hope they’re watchable.
(Sometimes Windows decides to cripple the system when it’s getting to do an update, that’s all I can think of.)
OVERNIGHT 07/08 JUNE
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I’ve weeded it this time, just a few highlights:
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Goodnight, y’owl 🤗
Thank you, thank you, scylla! It is so fun watching their escapades.
Yes, thanks scylla- parents are good providers!
Loved the video. Thanks Scylla!
With one owlet in the cavity, a second owlet decided a better option would be to return to the cavity and hope the parent would reattempt the prey delivery there. The third owlet remained on the upper branches. Parent did return with the prey and did hop to the cavity opening to make the delivery. 3rd owlet did the same thing, pretty much knocking itself, the parent, and the prey downward. As of 2:23am, the parent has not returned with the prey and the 3rd owlet hasn’t returned with it either. If it got dropped it may not have been retrieved off the ground. A second owlet exited the cavity later on and flew upward.
Thanks litlvxn – good to ‘see’ you 🙂
Kids swarmed the parent, who then left with the prey. The kids were left in utter shock, “Well, that didn’t go as we planned.”
“SWARMED THE PARENT” – love it 😁🤗
It’s good to see you, LITLVXN, you are greatly missed!
Parent attempted delivery of prey while two kids were on the branches. The 3rd owlet was inside the cavity. Parent appeared to be luring them further away.
All 3 of the owlets have been very active on our screen – one fell down but eventually got back up into foliage then managed to “fly” to beneath the cavity, it even managed to enter despite a sib blocking the entrance.
I reckon they’re congregating here in anticipation of PDs 😁 but none seen yet.
While I was joining up those 33 clips from last night’s activities, one of our owlets (probably #3?) fell off the tree – I wasn’t able to keep track to see if it made it back up, it’s taken so long to get that video finished.
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There’s no-one in sight now, can’t tell if anyone’s inside the cavity.
PS – I’m off to UK Ospreyland.
Back to night of 06/07 JUNE – continuing till cam went down before dawn.
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Do have SOUND on, there are some interesting vocals etc from unseen “persons”.
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All 3 owlets are on view – one’s curently on the upper branch, the other 2 half in/out of the cavity entrance.
But am getting buffering badly.
I’m about to join up the clips completing last night’s activities, I had to crash out without completing.
This is a couple of minutes ago:
Another one’s flapping (cos it won’t let me upload a snap without some text):
Looks like both the owlets and eaglets are fledging pretty much at the same time. Sunny fledged a few days ago and has been making flights to different trees landing near the top, then returns to the nest. She returned that first day when Jackie had brought a fish. Sunny grabbed it, then mantled for the first time. She would not let Gizmo near it. And she inhaled it, finally swallowing the tail end whole. Gizmo accidently fledged early this morning. She was “wingercizing”, lifted off the thin “front porch branch”, missed it on landing and dropped down. She recovered and flew to a nearby tree and is on a fairly large branch. Jackie tried to lure her back to the nest, but Giz refused. So Jackie fed her there. The Big Bear folks who run the cams think that Gizmo’s flight feathers still are blood feathers so it is a little harder for her to fly, I just checked the live nest cam-the nest is empty, but I know that the eaglet are safe, the parents know where they are. The eaglets will be with both parents though for a while. There are many skills they still need to learn. The owlets will be fed for a short time by their parents, but then they are on their own. I thank Pete for this opportunity to learn about owls.
Oh wow. Thanks for the video, Pete.
“UPON THE WINGS OF FREEDOM”
upon the wings of freedom
they will likely soar
into the wild blue yonder
oh so high and ever more
they will search and search
for an area of their own
leaving the familiar
for places to them unknown
the threesome seems quite healthy
their parents have done their job
protecting and feeding all along
as each grew from a fluffy white blob 🙂
now it’s up to each of us
to imagine how the three will do
we are so pleased to have observed
and once again we sincerely thank you (Pete)
(Thank you enzo for inspiring this lil poem with your post)
Thank YOU, emma! Inspiring words from a visual thought. Peace for you and your family
I was just going to type that it’s very frustrating to hear all this rustling, rasping and chirpling going on yet no-one’s in sight – and then an owl crashed down onto the lip and has entered the cavity.
Thanks for all the updates and videos scylla, appreciate all your efforts x
CONTINUING ON FROM THE OWLET’s RETURN…
AFTER DAYCAM – a hawk calls, Pete tussles with owl at cavity, then an add-on that I don’t think is on Pete’s video:
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Unfortunately, because I spent so much time using the recording laptop to edit all that footage, I missed the early developments – when I reset it up, the owlet (I think) was on the Limb and then on the euc trunk outside the cavity, then I had to pop out, don’t know what happened after that and shan’t be able to check for many hours. Dang. This setup needs a severe re-setting-up !!!
Barn Owl screeching/screaming out there, over and over again… non-stop!
SEE PETE’s MESSAGE ABOVE – no cavity cam repair is possible until all the owlets are out.
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I’m about to trawl the rest of last evening/this morning’s Limb cam footage, because Pete couldn’t tell how many owlets were in the cavity – #3 is very shy and often hides in the pantry, but I probably won’t find #1 getting back in because of the glare… we’ll see.
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TRIUMPH 😀😀😀 For both me and OWLET #1
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Let our Owlet be a lessoon to us all 😜
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(Episode #1 is down below.)
Wonderful video scylla. Thank you so much for all your searching to find him!!! I bet he was saying…… will you guys get out of the way so I can get back in!!!!
Thank you scylla! So much fun watching this little (big) guy learn.
Thanks for the update Pete, we have been fortunate to see as much as we have up to this point. Thank you for all you do.
Cool video of the attempted owl escape. Great work, Pete. Thank you for trying to get things going again.
I saw on Starr Ranch facebook page that Pete will be going up to try to fix the cam today. Fingers crossed for good luck and keeping him safe in his climb.
Do we have one owlet out of the cavity?
Hiya Patti, didn’t see you there.
The answer to your question (from me) is “I don’t know” – when I had to leave the branched owlet was on the trunk, maybe even on the ladder, trying to get back but I didn’t see if it made it.
I’ll be absent for several hours now 💤💤💤
There was just a kerfuffle in the foliage outside the cavity and one of the owlets stuck its head out to see what was going on.
Probably our adventurer trying to get back?
Yes it is, it’s just coming into view at the bottom of our picture… flap!
I couldn’t stay here so don’t know if it ever made it back into the cavity.
Also, I couldn’t tell how much progress the second owlet made, if any.
At the moment an owlet continues to survey the territory from the lip – what a shame we can’t see who’s inside.
See y’owl later 🤗
Nice big rat just delivered.
And another.
The post below should have said “an early stage of OUTNESS” – am too light fingered and letters get lost!
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05 JUNE
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I did this no-account little vid before I knew of more dramatic footage later 😝
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OWLET’S FIRST ADVENTURES ON THE BRANCHES – *EEK*
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Sound on.
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8m17s
Wrong snap above – never mind 😏
Great snap shot Scylla of owl on branch.