04/16/25 1:00 PM PST 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
Two still very contented at home.
I see one this early morn.
Now there are two 🙂🦉🦉
Lady in waiting 🙂🦉
10 Jan overnight – our female had had a big meal from the previous day’s hunting so she didn’t go out – he went out but came back empty – consolation bonding, the first I’ve seen for “ages” – he went straight to the lip and waited but changed his mind and you can see why – RAIN-RAIN-RAIN!
1m08s
.
Tonight they’d both left by 19:00, cavity it still empty now.
.
I may have got my dates wrong, it’s not yet the 11th at SR. Never mind, it don’t matter in the scheme of things, does it? 😜
Great, thanks scylla 🙂
Hello all. Both BNOW’s are huddled toward the back left corner.
I know lots of us are having rain, whether with enjoyment or concerns (we discovered a few roof leaks, but we are overall fine).
I’m unsure if the LA Times has a paywall: I am a subscriber, but hope you can see the following articles, if you desire. They are about the storms in California: we’ve had two biggies, with one more due Saturday.
An atmospheric river is above the state. This “river” can transport water at a rate per second equivalent to 25 Mississippi Rivers or 2.5 Amazon Rivers.
Whole article at: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-04/a-satellite-view-of-the-atmospheric-river-hitting-california
Other aspects with flooding and loss of power and lives:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-10/storm-northern-california?utm_id=82531&sfmc_id=2415921
Best wishes all. Hope you can be warm, dry, and healthy.
I’ve been watching reports on the BBC (Ellen Degeneres made an appearance in plastic mac, deluged and windswept!) and just came here to check on y’all – thank you for the articles, Lynn 😊
So – there’s more to come ☹ Be safe, everyone.
Things have improved in Scylla Towers – a wonderful plumber not only fixed my blocked kitchen sink but also the broken bathroom electrics !!! After all the rotten tradespeople I’ve paid ££££ to, at last a super one – they _are_ out there, if only you can find them 😄
Oh, scylla – thrilled to hear you have found yourself a GOOD plumber. They are worth their weight in gold once you find them. What a relief to know that when something goes wrong, you have someone reliable to call on. Congratulations!
Scylla, very good to hear an honorable worker has repaired the broken and help make your home back in order. Best for you and yours.
Two owl Twosday 🙂🦉🦉
🤣
One owl snoozing at the back.
Here was a strange episode when one owl seemed convinced the other had prey but I couldn’t see it! I made it Unlisted so’s not to inflict it on strangers, as I didn’t have the time or energy to edit it when I got to this several days ago:
6m01s
06 Jan – Prey brought home, I couldn’t decipher which one ate it in the end.
2m23s
I’ve checked and re-checked this – only one prey item seen entering this morning but later both owls had something to eat at the same time – even tho you can’t see for yourselves, I know you will trust me when I say that there is one at the back munching while the one at the front is too, but I couldn’t capture an evidential shot 😁
.
NB
==
I’ve seen no bondings since last reported – bearing in mind I’ve just been thru nearly 200 hours so I had to go rather fast.
In the first video, he comes in so fast and does appear empty-taloned. Maybe just wishful hoping on the other’s part.
Thank you so much, Scylla, for all the interesting videos and stills. You’re the best!
Two owls at home in the Ritz. GOOD MORNING to one and OWL!!!!
Hi All: I haven’t been by in a while, so hello to all. I see that Pete hasn’t fixed anything and hasn’t commented–I wonder what he’s up to? I hope all of you are doing well. Northern California is getting inundated with rain, although they won’t say we’re out of our drought because it could stop soon and not start again, and then we’d be behind. But there’s been A LOT of water! In my area, we’ve had almost 40 inches of rain since the fall (and remember, we only get rain between end of October and April). Our average for those 6 months is 60 inches total. Last year we had 25 total.
Two owls in the Ritz as I write this.
Hi, hindi! Welcome back. You are absolutely right! One wet year does not end a twenty-year drought. But it is a start. Here in So. Cal., we have had more rain this season than we normally get in a year, so I have my fingers crossed that the rains continue. I am thoroughly enjoying it.
Good to see you, Hindi. I’m on my way thru days ‘n days of cavity cam and the heavy rain is very noticeable 🌧⛈
I could have sworn I wrote to Trish asking her to be our mole at the Ranch, but I must have chickened out as I can’t find any such email 😜
Good evening hindi! Hope you weather the rain well, safe and comfortable for you and all of yours. May the rain quench Mother Nature’s thirst with minimal damage in the surrounding areas of home. Blessings, Peace.
21:50…lone owl in the ritz
There’s one owl still at home 🙂🦉
🙂 Yippee!
She is home and waiting 🙂🦉
And he has joined her 🙂🦉🦉
At this early time on Sunday morn, no one is home.
No one home
Have you heard from Pete in a month of Sundays?
No, ATA-Jack, not since he responded to “nudges” from EMMA and me with “I promise on my honor as the top Audubon Ranch Manager in the US of A, I’ll fix everything pronto” 😫
TWO in the Ritz snoozing peacefully away! Such a beautiful way to begin the morning!
Everyone, hope your day just sparkles!
20:27…BNOW pair, tucked in ritz……………………….Peace
Right now, both owls are still at home.
Both home and she (I think) is holding on to a large prey item 🙂🦉🦉🐀
Definitely looks like something furry in the front of her hundon.
She’s dozed off now – looks like a cosy foot muff 🙂
No one home yet again in this the wee hours of the morning! Maybe I need to sleep later??? 🤔
Love to see them allopreening 🙂
Wishing everyone a healthy and happy New Year. So happy to see our couple inside, away from the wet and wild weather we’ve been having. I hope you’re all doing well!!!
Thank you litlvxn, and the same to you ❤️
I’m awake in the wee small hours (covid cough) and there’s one owl at home. 🙂🦉
Happy New Year one and all. Due to covid, pneumonia and asthma, the last month has been somewhat a blur. Recovery is still in progress. Many days I missed checking on the duo but am happy to see that they are still with us. It is always a treat to see them in the Ritz! Here we go again watching these beautiful creatures and what this new year will bring. For all the Starr Ranchers, may it be a fulfilling and pleasing 2023!! 🙂
Ahhhh, so sorry you were not well Emma. That’s a whole lot to endure and glad you are coming out on the other side. Best wishes to you for a happy, healthy New Year. Patti
Relieved to see you again emma, you have been missed. All good wishes for the New Year and your continued return to good health.
Emma
So glad you are feeling better and that the new year is looking up!!!
Comfort and strength with your recovery, emma. Many blessings of love and Peace for you and all of yours. A beautiful year, watching, soaring.
Two at home – still awake.
Hi!
No one home. Must be still out hunting or having breakfast somewhere.
Nobody home, guess they are both out hunting. But what they are going to find on a rainy night like this is anybody’s guess.
Two at home – looks like it’s been raining again (we had heavy rain a few nights ago, I forgot to mention it).
Both home. One in the doorway.
As yesterday, one home and waiting 🙂🦉