With the leaves beginning to turn and a chill in the early morning air, it’s clear that autumn is certainly approaching. Unlike spring - when most backyard nature enthusiasts undertake extensive cleaning projects to get everything in shape for the growing season as well as the return of migratory birds, autumn more often than not elicits thoughts of “wrapping everything up” until next year.
However before covering the spigots and mulching over the garden, give your bird feeders and baths a good cleaning and refilling. As food becomes more scarce and sources of fresh water freeze over, having a fully stocked feeder and a clean, unfrozen birdbath will make your back yard a very popular place among the local wildlife - such as this Pileated Woodpecker that was the first of its species noticed by a Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0 enthusiast in Garland County, Arkansas a mere 25 minutes after giving their birdbath a good cleaning and refilling. For more tips on photographing winter birds, check out this Wingscapes article on how to best prep for winter.
Now that all the Christmas presents have been opened, we’d like to take this opportunity to welcome all those who found an Audubon BirdCam, BirdCam 2.0, or PlantCam under their tree to the rapidly growing Wingscapes community. As you have certainly already put fresh batteries into it and set it into position, all that’s left is to download the first images or videos you’ve recorded.
Once you do, we’d love to have you upload your results to the Wingscapes Photo and Video Galleries for all your fellow Wingscapes enthusiasts to view and enjoy. Who knows – you may even see your work featured here on our blog.
Thank you for supporting Wingscapes and believing in our products! We are very please to announce a new product line-up just in time for the holidays. Whether you are looking to upgrade your BirdCam or give someone a gift you know they'll love, we hope you enjoy these cameras!
The Audubon BirdCam is similar to the Original BirdCam - easy to set up and use, takes motion-activated photos and videos with sound. Key differences are more megapixels and no timelapse feature. And best yet, it's only $159.95! Hopefully this lower price will make the BirdCam popular with families as a great way to introduce children to the joy of birding.
Next up is the BirdCam 2.0, which is our highest performance BirdCam yet! It has a whopping 8 megapixels for crystal-clear images and stunning details. Plus, it features a flash for nighttime and low-light operation. If you want to spot owls or nighthawks, this BirdCam fits the bill and is only $199.95.
Many of you have sent us great ideas for the timelapse feature of the Original BirdCam. Thanks to your ideas and inspiration we have developed a timelapse-only camera. The Timelapse PlantCam ($79.95) automatically takes still photos or short video clips at set time intervals. The camera can be set to automatically stitch together photos to create a timelapse movie so you don't have to fuss with software. Plus, it has the same rugged, weatherproof casing as the BirdCams.
You've probably heard us mention David Lindquist before. He's one of our most active BirdCam users, and has contributed some really beautiful photos to the Wingscapes Photo Gallery. David has 22 bird feeders set up in his backyard in Cary, North Carolina, and has used his BirdCam to track bird behavior patterns. We convinced David to share some of his bird watching wisdom in an informative BirdCam Q&A. Thanks, David!
Two words that don’t often come to mind as a matching pair are “Ukraine” and “flamingo;” however those are just the two words that were coupled in a recent upload to the Wingscapes Photo Gallery by Wingscapes BirdCam user Eleonora.
Unfortunately, little information beyond that they were flamingos living in an enclosure in a Sevastopol, Ukraine park was shared as part of the upload.
Of course, while birders don’t ordinarily list birds sighted in captivity to their respective life lists, Eleonora’s designation of this image as a BirdCam Blooper gives us every assurance that she saw the humor in it.
Greetings...
Bicoastal media just posted an interview I did with them. Check it out...
Listen to Part 1
Listen to Part 2
Dr. Mobey's Lab posted about the BirdCam in early February.
Maybe the BirdCam can help him find out what is under his deck...
He writes:
Check out this piece of gadgetry. the Wingscapes BirdCam. I may have to get one of these. They look like the camera traps they use on my least favorite cryptozoology show, MonsterQuest. This would really come in handy at the house, snapping pictures of the none birds that frequent my yard. Not a single one. I’m the only Naturalist in the neighborhood and I have almost no wildlife in my yard. But maybe the Wingscapes will capture an image of whatever the hell is under my deck that the dog simply must bark at. My guess? Sasquatch…it’s a big deck.
Chasingame.com is perhaps the best resource on the web for reviews of all motion-activated game cameras. They began reviewing the Wingscapes BirdCam in December 2007.
Below is an update to their original review...
02-27-2008 update: We have had this cam setup on a neighbors feeder for a while trying to capture a picture of a never seen before in the area bird. Possible some type of oriole. To date we have only manage to document every other bird that has ever hit the south but not that bird. We are entering a cold spell and this might bring in some visitors that we have not seen before. The setup is at 6 feet and even the small yellow finch has managed to trigger the cam. It would be nice for some who has a pond with some Woodies on it to capture some pictures for us to display. This really gives folks a great way to still play with the cameras during the cold weather and is an important time to support the feathered friends that is also a part of the nature us trail camera folks enjoy to look at. We had some critter eating the edge of the ground feeder and a couple of days with this camera on duty allowed us to identify that we have more than tree rats in the area. These little rodents are as in tune with bird seed as the dreaded grackle.
Read the entire review...
Read this post. It is important to anyone remotely interested in remote cameras.
See the "Photo Albums" on the upper left corner of this webpage? Check out the album
Taken on December 20th, 2007
These photos were automatically uploaded to this blog by a wireless router at my home that received images wirelessly from a Wingscapes BirdCam mounted on our deck. This is all made possible by a very cool new product: the Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card.
We are still experimenting with this card and I should say upfront that we've had some hiccups. However, it is very exciting to report that when we've gotten it to work properly, this wireless 2GB SD card effectively makes the Wingscapes BirdCam WIRELESS!!! This means that I can setup the BirdCam, go to work, and as soon as it captures images of birds, it automatically sends the photos wirelessly to my home computer, an online photo service (the Wingscapes blog, in this case), or both.
This first version of the product has some limitations. It will only transmit .jpg photo files (not our .avi video files). Range is limited by a number of factors (camera type, distance to Wi-Fi router, etc), and there are not many options for controlling the process. We'd like to see the ability to schedule uploads and an option that deleted images from the 2 GB card once they've uploaded.
This product was designed principally for casual photographers who do not want to connect their cameras to a cable in order to get images onto their computer. For that purpose, it works. But, I feel the value of this technology is FAR greater in applications like the BirdCam....where it actually extends the an existing product's capabilities. Expect wireless to become a common feature of digital cameras over the next few years.
Wingscapes tips its hat to the developers at Eye-Fi. They've successfully brought a problem-solving product to market that will surely be a big hit (the product is already racking up awards). We are looking forward to using the Eye-Fi card with the BirdCam and have high hopes for Eye-Fi as they work to improve this new technology. (I also have to give due credit to whoever designed the product packaging for the Eye-Fi. It is one of the coolest boxes I've seen.)
If you want to experiment with an Eye-Fi card in your BirdCam, please go for it. Because the technology is so new, we can not offer support for these wireless cards and I'm sure Eye-Fi can't offer support for application in the BirdCam. But, we got it to work and are having a ball with it. If you use an Eye-Fi with your BirdCam, please let us know how it goes.
...check...1-2-3...is the microphone still turned on?
OK, sorry for the long drought of posts. We've been working furiously to prepare for the product launch of the Wingscapes BirdCam at this weekend's Birdwatch America tradeshow in Atlanta.
Exactly one year ago, Wingscapes attended this tradeshow as a visitor and discussed the BirdCam concept with potential customers. The feedback we got was uniformly enthusiastic and the project moved forward. 2006 was a long year - that flew by. We've developed (what we believe is) - without question - the world's first easy-to-use and effective camera designed specifically for backyard bird watching. We are extremely excited to introduce the BirdCam this week.
So, here we are. We are here. We've arrived and we are ready to tell you about - and sell you - the Wingscapes BirdCam. Interested? Questions? Comments? Please get in touch...
Bart Stephens, Product Manager
bartstephens@wingscapes.com
Tel: (888) 811-WING (9464)
Fax: (205) 408-6157
WINGSCAPES
150 Industrial
Rd.
Alabaster, AL 35007
Check back for updates and look out for our new, permenant website which we expect to launch next week...www.wingscapes.com
This blog will continue to publish from: http://wingscapes.typepad.com/wingscapes/
See you at Birdwatch America!