About Nest Box Cam
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| What is a webcam? A "webcam" is a video camera that periodically takes pictures which are uploaded to a server and can be viewed using a browser on the Internet. What is a NestCam? Our NestCams are video cameras mounted inside nest boxes or near nests so that online visitors can see the activity inside the nest almost as it happens. How often and when are the cam images updated? When things are working right, images from the cams are updated once or twice each minute, during daylight hours (Eastern time). During the dark hours, check the archives for highlights from previous days. Our owl cams run all day and night. How do I get the most recent images? When you view the pages containing the NestCam images, your browser may show you an older, cached version of the image from the last time you looked at the pages. To force your browser to get the latest image, hold the <shift> or <option> key down on your keyboard while you click on the "Reload" or "Refresh" button of your browser. This usually will force the browser to get a fresh copy of cam images. If the time and date shown in the refreshed cam images is still old, the cam may be down and not currently transmitting. What is the camera point of view? The camera looks straight down into the nest, or in some cases, horizontally. In an empty nest box, the image shows the floor of the box. In a box with a nest, the image will show the contents of the nest or the bird tending the nest. Where are the NestCams? Currently we have Nest Box Cams deployed in Kentucky, Oregon, California, Texas, Arizona, Minnesota, and Washington, with more on the way! The cameras and nest boxes are maintained by dedicated volunteers. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology thanks these volunteers for their efforts on behalf of the NestCam project. Do the cameras disturb the birds? From our experience, most birds are not bothered by cameras in their nest boxes. The cameras are completely silent and don't move (to zoom, focus, or pan). The cameras are occasionally adjusted by a person at the nest, but the disturbance this causes isn't much more than that caused by a normal monitoring visit. We sometimes use low wattage lights inside the nest box to improve the lighting on overcast days and near dawn and sunset. These lights are typically turned off at night so as not to affect the sleep patterns of the birds. |