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
CAVITY CATCHUP
===============
Which is starting on the morning of the 17th, when our owl flew @ about 06:00.
Later in the morning, the Starling ventured right in:
A new spider crawled up the wall, I lost him in the crevice:
This was the owl entering, it had prey in its talons:
This must be the snack referred to by HUNDON:
See earlier snaps from EMMA and me, including one with the second owl…
The last time I saw 2 owls was at 01:22, when one came to the lip and blocked our view for a long time, and now it appears there is only one owl but I can’t be certain.
G’night fowlks!
Oh shoot!
This must be the snack referred to by HUNDON:
One on the lip, taking up all the light. Can’t tell if there is a second one in back or not.
SCYLLA, thanks for your captures of both of them. Lovely.
Back in the cavity now, and she’s home alone.
Lots of lovey-dovey-ness has been going on:
Now we’ve got one looming large at the front and the other hidden behind.
Excellent news 🦉🦉❤️
Excellent news 🙂
Owl to the lip 😄
Ooh look !!! 😲😄
Oh wow! 🙂
Still there 🙂
I had to take 4 snaps to get one without stripes!
S/he’s coming to life:
Couldn’t resist these lovely eyes. Since that little period of wakefulness s/he’s dozing again.
444pm Owl standing in view.
Live snap with the time on it – cos I just decided to update that laptop and put “something” on it, and trotted along to SR.org and there it was !!!
Heaven knows how big and how pale this will be, it’s had no treatment whatsoever:
YIPPEE KI-YAY!! 🙂
How super, EMMA 🤗
I see an OWL in the Ritz this morning. Snoozing away on one leg. HipHipHooray!!!!
444am one Owl standing in view.
Enjoying a snack now 🙂
Still there!
No one visiting at the moment.
The owl has flown now.
The owl is currently on the lip – that will be the THIRD visit, this was the second, when it brought and ate at least some of a rat:
6m
About 40 minutes later the owl was back, it picked up the rat from under the cam and finished eating it:
And, as said, the owl is now on the lip.
And remains on the lip 🙂
Owl hasn’t left yet. Currently on the lip.
Still on the lip – I’m just going to do a catchup, see if we missed anything particularly exciting or unusual 🙂
Still there, enjoying a nighttime snack 🙂🦉
Beautiful 🦉
Oh yes! 🙂
OMG! We have an owl in the cavity snoozing. How exciting!
And it is still there! WOW! An honest to goodness OWL in the cavity!!!!
Thank you dear SOTU for the notification! Good Sunday morning to one and all! 🙂
Do the owls realize that it is mid October?
SCYLLA, chiming in with others with appreciation for your efforts to bring us the Ritz highlights. Thank you!:)
Someowl heard you emma, we have a visitor 🙂🦉
HUNDON1….. Hmmmm, if I had only known! 🙂
14 October, early hours, owl brought a rat – or at least some of a rat – and stashed it under the cam, just like it did a few nights ago:
Two hours later it started to eat and finished it off:
When it left it had been in the cavity for 3 hours altogether, and it wasn’t long before morning.
That’s it up to about 18:45 on the 14th.
And another empty day! I sure miss our owls and Pete!
Oooooooooh, I don’t think you missed the owl by much, Patti!
Don’t forget you can scroll or skip back thru the live cam and maybe catch someone 🤗
No owls *sigh*
No mice *sigh*
Just the Starling, two mornings running – the first day, I’ve cut out a lot and given you just the “highlights”, such as they are 😜
2m30s
Thanks scylla – interesting new month? 🙂
Your highlights are always great Scylla. Thanks so much. Patti
Interesting to see them in all their breeding finery up close. Thanks again, scylla, for all your work to keep us on top of things. You do a super job!
And of course empty again today 🙁
Still empty today!
Empty! Sigh…….
Still empty…
Hi, emma.
And still empty – sigh 😔
We have a visitor on the lip 🙂🦉
S/he stayed for 2 hours:
Before that we had mousy, who was spooked by a giant moth!
And now I can’t remember if this was this morning or yesterday morning – the Starling was back inside the cavity – a bit longer than this and it came back again but didn’t go inside:
54s
My comment “Starting on the 4th, I see the owl that EMMA captured below” was because I was on the previous page, because we STILL don’t have “Newer comments” at the top of pages, so I missed all your photos and comments on this page.
If you see what I mean 😫
CAVITY CATCHUP
===============
Starting on the 4th, I see the owl that EMMA captured below, it stayed under 40 minutes.
Early hours of the 5th, prey brought in – it was going to be stashed in the pantry but owl changed its mind and kept it underfoot… after that I couldn’t see what happened because the owl soon went to the lip and eventually left:
Aha! The (or “an”) owl was back on the evening of the 6th, looked in the pantry, it was bare – looked puzzled, eventually came forward and plucked up the prey from under the cam! No wonder I couldn’t see where it went the night before! Rat got eaten. I’d like to know what the stuff coming down from the attic is, can’t get a good view of it:
Early morning the Starling popped in – not right in, just in the doorway, it found a little grubby thing right under the cam where the rat had been!
The attic stuff – enormously brightened and sharpened:
I’ll start a new post, just in case I get moderated.
Late evening on the 7th the owl was disappointed there was no prey, it stayed for at least 5 hours snoozing on ‘n off.
Then it pulled down the crud from the attic, how obliging!
It came down a bit further later.
And the following evening the owl returned and pulled it (almost) all down:
I calculate that the owl stayed for SEVEN AND A HALF hours !!!
Some time after that I saw the first mouse for a while.
Later a spider pulled up some of the remaining crud:
Today (I lost track of the time but it was well into daycam, so not first thing) the Starling was back trying to find more grubs:
That’s it fowlks, phew! 🤗
Scylla you’re a star, thanks for all you do 🙂
Great job Scylla! Thanks. Patti
KUDOS to SCYLLA! 🙂
There’s still an owl at home 🙂🦉
Nobody home now
OWL ALERT!!! 🙂
It must see or hear something that we can’t.
Sorry capture is so large. Imgur edit isn’t working for me.
No owl this morning, but there is “hanging debris.”
WOOHOO! There is a BNOW in the Ritz!! 🙂
I can see more spots in this capture. it is tough to get a picture without all the squiggly lines. GRRRRR!
Still there 🙂
Morning everyone! Just checking in to say “Hi”. Have a great day. Patti