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
Nobody’s making a pretty face for me, but here they are anyway:
(Lots to catch up on, maybe there’ll be some poseurs in there 😁 )
TWO TWO TWO!! YIPPEEEE!
Yippee, yippee, yippee!!!!!
Our lady of the night is home and sleeping 🙂
See no one tonight.
Some funny animal pictures:
https://www.boredpanda.com/comedy-wildlife-photography-contest-so-far-2022/?utm_source=com.google.android&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic
One owl is here and blocking the view 🙂🦉
One owl still blocking the view but several bats are home!
Both owls have arrived and are sleeping 🙂🦉🦉
Mornin! What’s up Buttercups?
At this time I am up, barely. I am an assistant to a consultant on building a WWII exhibit from the ground up at an Archive…just part time. Anyway I am heading to the archive which is in another town. That’s why I’m up so early. I love doing the research! On a side note, I volunteered to map an historic cemetery too. We are using arcGIS technology. FASCINATING! OK rambled too much. Very much enough of me. Now for the important part, no owls at home this early and neither are the bats. The Ritz and Bat Cave are empty.
LOVE!
Amy
Wow, Amy. Retired, you say? HA! Sounds like you are definitely keeping busy, and it all sounds fascinating. Have a great day!
I have been so busy but a FUN busy! Have a day filled with beautiful magic Wynne!
Hi Amy. How fascinating is right. I worked for historians once who were working on San Francisco’s new sewer system down by the waterfront and recording all the findings during the dig. I got to transcribe all their notes – mostly on the old ships that were found buried. Loved it! Have a lot of fun! Patti
Morning!
LOVE the fox clip Scylla! Thank you! He was so cautious and marking his territory too. Fun to see. Still only one owl home. There are more bats though! What looks like my buddy hanging out in the same spot and others on deeper into the bat cave. Yup, you cats have a FABBY day!
One owl (possibly the male) napping at home and one bat lurking up under the ledge. That’s all I see.
The way he’s standing reminds me of the male – but can’t swear to it.
She has arrived home early 🙂🦉
Lovely to see the 2 owls in colour, but one’s almost hidden in the back, of course!
Here was Foxy at about 06:15 this morning – s/he was crouched up between the 2 trees longer than I’ve shown:
2m05s
.
MEG – re trodden-down grass – I’ve thought that too but it changes appearance depending on lighting. Sometimes it looks as tho someone’s been rolling around in it 😄
A little allopreening episode – a bit one-sided 😉
1m20s
Just checking in again. Lots of bats all lined up under the beam in the Bat
Cave! They are scratchin’ and wiggling around. The two owls are gorgeous as ever and are preening and scratching too.
OH! By the way, I was at Tractor Supply (feed store) yesterday and a man was there with rescued birds that could not be released back into the wild. He had a gorgeous barn owl, a young barred owl, a buzzard with loads of personality and a type of small falcon I had never heard of. If you had cash you could donate for a picture with you and one of the birds. Didn’t have a dime🤨 DANG IT
Hi Hindi!
There are two beautiful owls in the cavity now! Two for the day guys! Don’t see any bats today but it’s still early for you cats out west.
May your days just sparkle with beautiful magic!
Two for the day!! It is going to be a good day today!!
Hello, it’s been some time. I occasionally lurk but haven’t commented. One owl in the cavity, had been preening, now dozing. Looks fairly spot free, so perhaps a male.
Sandy on her morning walk – I didn’t find her going the other way, but there were several outages around that time:
41s
It seems the trail may have been getting some use. To me it looks like the grass is more trodden down than it has been ?
Solo resident today 🦉
She (?) brought home a rat and stashed it in the pantry – later brought it out and stood on it thinking for a while, then started eating… but she’s paused at the mo, “thinking” again, still lots of rat under-talon.
Yes, I’d agree it’s ‘she’ with that buff coloured chest ‘necklace’ 🙂
Scylla, you know what the coolest thing about that spider video? The grass straightening up again. It didn’t just pop up when the spider jumped off. It was slow and calculated.
Have you guys every read the book “What A Plant Knows”? Fascinating! It compares our 5 senses to how plants “see” the world using their “5 senses” . A little technical but the gist is AMAZING!
Oh my goodness…I am too early again today. No one home at the Ritz or the Bat Cave. I hope you all have such a GROOVY day! Sending thoughts of rain, cooler weather and love for you out into the universe!
“this amazing sanctuary”
each day l come to Starr Ranch
the owls l hope to see
and when l click on open
l often feel such a sense of glee
when the world all around me
seems to be weirdly out of control
to get the sense of peace I seek
l know just where to go
mother nature is a balm
to my very troubled soul
the amazing world around us
sometimes seems so out of control
so very grateful am l always
for this amazing sanctuary
that provides for the natural world
and peace and joy it gives to me
🙂
❤️
OH I LOVE your poem Emma! I can really identify with it. Beautiful said. LOVE! Amy
One BNOW was busy taking care of its wing — smoothing it after cleaning. Both owls appear comfy.
An interesting article — are bees sentient?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/29/bee-cognition-insect-intelligence-research/
TRAIL !!!
=====
These videos are Unlisted because I’ve been getting some nasty comments about unclear Loch Garten videos from people who don’t realise the lens has been whitewashed by the Ospreys, and that it’s a miracle I got anything out of it at all! And it’s the same story only different here 😜 And yes, I know I’m clutching at straws but at least we saw SOMEONE !!!
.
Gray Fox 🦊 looking more like an otter if only we could see it – I’ve done my level best, one could only see tiny eyes originally:
.
Spider 🕷 I think there’s a smudge on the lens at the bottom which prevents us seeing it exit after leaving the grass stalk – which didn’t recover until the strand of silk broke:
.
Two in the cavity, here was one of them just now:
Hey WYNNE – ref the red portions in my “dramatically coloured snap” – they were natural, it was only the inside of the cavity that I blackened, then put the b/w frame on.
JACK – the cam’s been like this since (we think) the mice chewed something they shouldn’t have, and Pete simply hasn’t had time or resources to fix it. One of these days he hopes to connect up a new cam.
I agree it’s off-putting – just imagine what it’s like FF-ing thru the nights and a lot of the days (when daycam doesn’t kick in, because this cam has never been good at detecting daylight) looking for “events” 😫
As I type, we have another almost word-for-word repeat of my comment at the bottom of the page, it’s just not quite identical re positions of individual bats today and the breeze is lighter.
My internal network has gone down every day for the past 3 days, now I have to reboot to get at the Trail recordings – it is ORFUL, so many progs have to be shut down and re-set-up again, I’m putting it off as long as poss.
All the best to everyone 😻
Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it.
Two owls allopreening ❤️🦉🦉
What the heck is the matter with the owl camera during the nighttime? It isn’t very conducive to constant viewing.
HIP HIP HOORAY
WE HAVE TWO AGAIN TODAY!!! 🙂
One owl flew in and perched on the branch. Now “she” has hopped on into the cavity. So, one owl home so far. Some of the bats are home. I can BARELY see them tucked under the beam. The largest one that usually (thanks Scylla!) sits up front was there but I got to see him drop and fly! OH both owls are home now! WELCOME home babes! SR’s have a FABBY day!💕
Good day, all!
See my post at the bottom of this page? Well, I could repeat it word-for-word and it would be true now.
So maybe bats do have their reserved seats, POSSUM 😜
TRAIL
=====
Remember when Pete used to gazump me with reports of critters that the system alerted him to? I don’t think there’s been one for absolutely donkeys, more than a year. I checked SR Facebook – only to be greeted by a very loud ad for cat food 🙀🦐
The thing is, I was SO hoping to surprise you but 26 hours of Trail have produced ZILCH, NADA, NOTHING – well, a night flyer too distant for even a snap.
Of course, the deer probably don’t bother showing up because there’s so little green for them to browse, no juicy “weeds” for them to nibble, tho there’s some greenery on the trees. It’s looking more like a hay field than our precious Trail.
I’ve got lots of cavity saved up, maybe we’ll find some drama (nice drama of course) in there somewhere – off I go!
No drama of any kind, so I made a dramatically coloured snap:
^^^ When I first posted there was only a link “View on Imgur.com” but if you wait the picture loads 😕
G’night fowlks!
Thank you scylla for all the hours you spend on this. Love the snap.
I second hundon1s comment. That snap is, indeed, rather dramatically colored. Especially the red portions. Hugs to you, dear scylla.
Two one-legged owls at home this morning. Lovely sight to see.
Morning! What’s up Buttercups?
No owls home at this time in the early morn. I see a couple of bats hanging out. I have noticed what looks like the same bat roosting in the same place each time I check in. Question…do bats have “ their spot”? Do they regularly go to the exact same place each time they return? Does this make any sense? Like when you go to church and sit in the same pew each time or park in the same spot at work…my wondering for the morning.🤔 It’s 6:30 here. Just waiting on the sun to rise so I can see to bush hog. It is just about to peek up from behind the trees. Have a most GROOVY day my friends!
Checking in! Two beauties in the cavity, one in front and one behind – as so often.
Two bats prominent, others lurking in the shadows.
Sunny, breezy, green limb view, parched Trail.
🤗