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
One owl in the cavity – snoozing on one leg.
Morning hundon1!
Still just one owl at home.
One owl is at home now and resting 🙂🦉
Two at home! One is preening pretty tail feathers. Sending love and peace your way!
I had a response from Pete – and he included a short video of Bell Creek, which I’ve uploaded Unlisted so’s to share it with y’all:
Oops, I’ve missed more stuff from Pete – here’s another flooded stream, this one entitled “Dip crossing”:
Pete says “these rains are nothing like what we’ve had in the past” and has sent “pics of our bridge from 1/6/23 and what it was like in 2010. The cavity and our house are south of the south looking view”.
,
I’m a bit sidetracked at the mo, I’ve put the 2 snaps in the order of Pete’s email but can’t stop to think deeply about whether they represent the years he means – I imagine the flooded on is 2010 ???
Those that have been to SR will recognize that as the one road in and out. Just as well those floods don’t last.
And I just got the ‘page not found’ error when I logged in. Refreshing the page fixed it.
scylla, Patti, Becky, et al – For several days now I have been getting a rash of “Bad Gateway”, “Page doesn’t exist”, Error 505, messages ad nauseum. Each time, I just refresh the screen and it comes back up ok. Just thought I’d LET YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
The same has been happening to me as well Wynne.
Wynne & Hundon & Patti – thanks for the feedback! My problem was that I insisted on clicking on Newer Comments at the bottom (naturally, cos we still don’t have it at the top, ahem! 😜 ) – it wasn’t until I did the trial post that I realised it was fixed.
Woohoo! The second owl arived about 40 minutes after the first – they’re both snoozing now.
I just got “bad gateway” too. What’s going on? Patti
One owl in the cavity @ 04:50.
.
I don’t know if that will post, because for several hours the cam has been the only part of this page that’s been working (for me). When it first went wrong I got “Bad Gateway”, since then I’ve been getting “ERROR 500 – INTERNAL SERVER ERROR”.
I wrote to Pete a few hours ago, if this posts I’ll had a snap to catch his eye, in case he peeps in here but hasn’t seen my email. If it doesn’t… 😫😁
Well I’m blow’d 😲 I’ve mended the site 😜 so I won’t bother posting the snap.
Sorry, credit goes to HUNDON :)))
I have been having problems accessing the webcam. I can get Starr Ranch website on chrome, but not on Edge browser. I get the Internal Server Error on Edge. At least I have one that works great.
There’s one owl sleeping at the moment 🙂🦉
Ah, I shouldn’t have taken the credit, it musta been you, Hundon, who mended the site 🤗
Haha scylla, can’t claim the credit.
Empty. Happy Hunting, y’owl.
How nice that our owl has a little sunshine. Very cute hummingbird just flew to the cavity opening and tool a look at our owl.
Guess we only have one owl today.
06:20-ish I was on the phone to my friend telling him how worried I was because the cavity was still empty after about 7 hours !!! When one of our couple hopped in. S/he is dozing now. It’s raining but it was a lot heavier earlier, according to the blotchy blurs on the cam.
Hurry home, Partner 🦉
Still only one owl (still dozing) – rain is heavier :(((
Still no one home.
One home now.
Still raining! No one home right now.
Sending peace and love your way!
It’s all quiet now .
One owl in the cavity had been going back and forth from standing on the lip to standing in the back of the cavity–doing that several times. And now it flew off. When it’s raining as much as it has been, I wonder if they’re having a difficult time hunting?
Owl in the Ritz and a talon on the lip.
Two owls in for the day.
WYNNE !!! That’s exactly what I was thinking as I scrolled thru the nonstop downpour – we should be able to hear Bell Creek 😫😁
This represents the two bondings I’ve noticed over the past couple of days:
This represents the rain – I had to include the stripe because the “item” falling only lasted for one frame:
I’ve only seen one prey item, and that was partial and scraggy, only seen as it entered and later as it was gobbled, neither time a good view.
Fond thoughts to all the creatures and Starr Ranchers, both here on the blog and there at the Ranch.
There’s one owl left at home 🙂🦉
Two beautiful owls with their backs to the world. Great way to start the day.
More rain expected starting this afternoon, through Tuesday.
Sure do wish we could hear Bell Creek. I’ll bet it is really full right now.
Wishing one and owl a wonderful day.
One at home and on the lookout for the other 🙁🦉
Still on the Lip
Owl on the lip.
Owl gone. No body home now.
How lovely to see our owls both at home today. Good Morning to everyone in our Starr Ranch family. May this find you all healthy and looking forward to you day.
Both BNOWs in the ritz, sleeping.
Hi Wynne! For you, the Starr Ranch community and all creatures ~ safety from the storms, food, comfort, and………………Peace
The Bald Eagles in Big Bear have their first egg, laid Wednesday the 11th. Best energy for Jackie and Shadow and the next generation.
Hi, enzo. Hope all is well with you.
The owls are back at home 🙂🦉🦉
Owls just left.
Once again we have two owls in residence 🙂🦉🦉
Just the one again now – she says Hi 😊