The artists of the bird community - male bowerbirds (unusual animal behavior)

[cdev]

This bird's behavior is really quite striking. In order to mate, they create this elaborate piece of decorative art, the "bower" and try to use it to impress females. Check them out. More here (stills).

Some are incredibly elaborate. Everything has to be just so.

[jwet]

There is a bird that is common on the east coast of the US called the Woodcock that does similar things.  I'm an EE but have fallen into doing a lot of consulting work for Ornithologists- fascinating problems, not much money but I'm retired...

[EEVblog]

The Other Blogs post is NOT a place to place off-topic videos. Please don't do this.

[cdev]

Got it, thanks, Dave.

There is a bird that is common on the east coast of the US called the Woodcock that does similar things.  I'm an EE but have fallen into doing a lot of consulting work for Ornithologists- fascinating problems, not much money but I'm retired...

You're helping the ornithologists count/identify/monitor the bird population in some way?

I've wanted to figure out ways to monitor wildlife in my yard better. I have a fairly small backyard but it abuts on a wooded area and a fair amount of animals pass through it. Lots of birds. Ive put up boxes -bird houses for them to nest in in the past. The falling price of hardware makes me want to put a box with a camera out there this year. Or something like a trail cam, to take snapshots of animals that pass through. We get a lot of deer. One two young male deer with antlers had a little battle in our back yard.

I basically live in the typical suburban neighborhood, density wise..

The smartest birds we get here are crows. Which are pretty smart.

Which are pretty interesting.

[cdev]

Got it!

I just looked up the woodcock and they do exist where I live, although I don't know if my yard is the kind of habitat they are seen in.

There is a bird that is common on the east coast of the US called the Woodcock that does similar things.  I'm an EE but have fallen into doing a lot of consulting work for Ornithologists- fascinating problems, not much money but I'm retired...

You're helping the ornithologists count/identify/monitor the bird population in some way?

I've wanted to figure out ways to monitor wildlife in my yard better. I have a fairly small backyard but it abuts on a wooded area and a fair amount of animals pass through it. Lots of birds. I've put up boxes -bird houses for them to nest in in the past. The falling price of hardware makes me want to put a box with a camera out there this year. Or something like a trail cam, to take snapshots of animals that pass through. We get a lot of deer. One two young male deer with antlers had a little battle in our back yard.

I basically live in the typical suburban neighborhood, density wise..

The smartest birds we get here are crows. Which are pretty smart.

Maybe I should "reach out" to them in some way? I'm kind of joking but kind of not.

Each species seems to have its own quirks and so the quirks kind of dictate what one can do that's fun with them. As a human interacting with another species, it has to be fun for both.

[jwet]

I don't quite understand Dave's message- are we doing something wrong?  Should we take this to PM?

>>You're helping the ornithologists count/identify/monitor the bird population in some way?

Yes- for the last 20 years or so I've worked on tracking, censusing and observing birds with various electronic devices.  Most of my work has been with Ted Simons and Matt Aldredge of NC State University.  You can look at his papers- he even honored me as a co-author on one for building the system.  Here is a link to some of his papers-
https://cals.ncsu.edu/applied-ecology/people/simons/

A trail cam is pretty cool and quite reasonable these days.  We built an Eagle Cam out on a very remote site (Jordan Lake) and had it streaming online for several years, first in the country.  Its been taken over by the lake management (Army Corp of Engineers).  I built several other video systems for various research purposes- look at the papers about monitoring predators of Oyster Catchers.  Trail cams are a nice canned solution but a Raspberry PI with a Camera would be pretty nice- stream directly to the web for $50.

Take a look at Ted's papers and we can discuss more if you're interested.  What country are you in- it gets butchered by the website.

Regards

[EEVblog]

I don't quite understand Dave's message- are we doing something wrong?  Should we take this to PM?

Yes, this is not the place to post off-topic videos.
IIRC cdev has a history of doing this too.
We don't allow off-topic videos to be posted on other parts of the forum, and it's not ok to post them here either. Otherwise we end up with everyone posting any off-topic video under the sun in the Other Blogs sections which is designed for technical related videos.

[jwet]

I see- I didn't capture the video part- I can certainly understand that.  Thanks- love this board!

[cdev]

I don't quite understand Dave's message- are we doing something wrong?  Should we take this to PM?

>>You're helping the ornithologists count/identify/monitor the bird population in some way?

Yes- for the last 20 years or so I've worked on tracking, censusing and observing birds with various electronic devices.  Most of my work has been with Ted Simons and Matt Aldredge of NC State University.  You can look at his papers- he even honored me as a co-author on one for building the system.  Here is a link to some of his papers-
https://cals.ncsu.edu/applied-ecology/people/simons/

A trail cam is pretty cool and quite reasonable these days.  We built an Eagle Cam out on a very remote site (Jordan Lake) and had it streaming online for several years, first in the country.  Its been taken over by the lake management (Army Corp of Engineers).  I built several other video systems for various research purposes- look at the papers about monitoring predators of Oyster Catchers.  Trail cams are a nice canned solution but a Raspberry PI with a Camera would be pretty nice- stream directly to the web for $50.

Take a look at Ted's papers and we can discuss more if you're interested.  What country are you in- it gets butchered by the website.

Regards

I'm in the US, in suburban NJ, just outside of New York City. Its fairly urbanized, still its surprising how many wild animals I still see. Would love to capture a record of them. I think I am going to do that. Why not?

Another great place for a trail cam where I don't know of one is Strawberry Canyon which adjoins the UC Berkeley campus, on the border between Berkelely and Oakland.   There are cougars, mountain lions that live in the canyon which is the location of the Berkeley Lab, one of the US's national laboratories (home of a supercomputing center and a large number of research projects in cutting edge areas) and its also the home of the UC Berkeley botanical gardens.  Strawberry Canyon is the location of a very popular hiking trail and its also the home of the Lawrence Hall of Science (museum), which was the set used as the home of the computer that took over the world in the 70s scifi film "Colossus, the Forbin Project"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/

I'm surprised there is no strawberry canyon trail cam. There really should be,

[@rt]

This reminds me of that time I helped one, which was unwise. It’s pollution, but my heart was in a good place I did not place any items in the Bower. I only delivered attractive items to an obvious nearby location. I was motivated in the first place because there was no blue stuff around, and this bird’s Bower was pathetic.