‘Suspicious’ activity caught on puffin webcam

Chris Cope

19 June 2019 09:33

CONCERNS have been raised after people were seen on a webcam apparently interfering with puffin burrows at Sumburgh Head late on Monday night.

Viewers of the popular ‘puffin cam’ appeared to see a couple of people with torches climb over the wall at the Sumburgh lighthouse towards the nesting birds.

A third person was also seemingly captured on camera staying put behind the wall.

Voices could be heard on the webcam footage as the individuals were just metres away from audio recording equipment.

The incident happened at around 11pm.

The RSPB is aware of the footage, while local police are keen to hear from anyone with information about the identity of the people and their intentions.

Officers also reminded people that tampering with birds can be an offence.

All wild birds in Great Britain are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

Andy Steven, who runs the Shetland Webcams website, said he watched the incident live and checked with the RSPB to see if there was anything “official” happening.

“The activity did look planned and suspicious with three people involved,” he said.

“They did not appear to realise they were being streamed live and they were tampering with the puffin burrows just a few metres from our sound recording head, so their voices were captured too.”

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On a wing and a player: hopes webcam can save endangered albatross

Footage of tiny colony of birds on the southern tip of New Zealand captivates millions around the globe

Eleanor Ainge Royin Dunedin

Sat 12 Jan 2019 01.00 GMTLast modified on Mon 14 Jan 2019 03.25 GMT

Millions of amateur naturalists around the world have been tuning in to the secret lives of albatrosses as New Zealand rangers employ YouTube in a bid to save the mysterious giant sea birds.

New Zealand conservation teams set up a 24-hour live-stream of an albatross nest at Taiaroa Head on the Otago peninsula in 2016. Three years on, the feed has become an unexpected global hit, with 2.3 million people from 190 countries tuning in to watch the endangered birds rear their chicks on a frigid peninsula at the bottom of the world.

 “Someone somewhere in the world is watching 24 hours a day,” says department of conservation (DoC) ranger Jim Watts.

“People watch it in hospitals, in nursing homes. There’s a real intimacy to watching the chicks grow – people fall in love and become invested.”

The northern royal albatross – or toroa in the Maori language te reo – is endemic to New Zealand and is under threat from climate change, fly-strike disease and heat stress. The birds have been described as “casualties on the frontline” of the war against plastic, as they mainly feed by swooping down on squid in the ocean – and often mistake brightly coloured plastic for prey.

The estimated total population of northern royal albatross is 17,000, and with intensive intervention the Taiaroa Head population has doubled since 1990. But that protected colony represents only 1% of the total population, and their small New Zealand home has become “crucial” to conservation efforts as they are the only managed and quantifiable settlement of the rare and endangered birds in the world.

The other 99% of toroa live on remote sub-antarctic Chatham Islands and have never been accurately counted or managed, though survey drone flights are planned in the near future.

Watts says the 24/7 coverage from the camera has provided valuable insights into the lives of the elusive birds, and has the capacity to ensure more vulnerable chicks reach adulthood.

Continued  

Ozzie the bald eagle: How a webcam celebrity to millions died fighting for his love

His and Harriet’s nest has attracted 40 million views, but in the end Ozzie lost his life, and love, to a younger eagle

Yanan Wang

Thursday 1 October 2015 13:00 BST

Within an hour of Ozzie's death, over 600 people has posted comment to CROW's Facebook CROW - Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife

For over twenty years, Ozzie and Harriet lived in marital bliss.

It was clear from the start that they were made for each other. She, a striking creature with a large beak and black-speckled tail; he, smaller but no less distinguished, with sprinkles of white interspersed on his right shoulder.

After a residential stint elsewhere in North Fort Myers, Fla., the bald eagle pair made their nest on the sprawling property of Dick Pritchett Real Estate, where they flew freely among the pine trees. The year was 2006, and Ozzie and Harriet had yet to become national darlings.

Little is known about the couple’s life during this quiet period. Presumably, they engaged in conventional eagle activities: eating fish, tending to a nest, gliding majestically.

Ozzie’s life came to an abrupt end Tuesday evening in a manner ripe for Shakespearean tragedy. The Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW), where the eagle was being treated this weekend, announced his passing on their Facebook page.

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Live webcam provides rare glimpse of Arctic snowy owls

Arctic snowy owls are the featured performers for a new webcam near Barrow, Alaska.

Science Recorder | Delila James | Friday, July 04, 2014

A high-definition camera trained on the nesting site of two Arctic snowy owls and their six chicks went live this week, giving scientists and bird enthusiasts an unprecedented look into the daily lives of these magnificent birds. The burrow is located on the coast of the Arctic Ocean near Barrow, Alaska.

“You’re not able to watch the birds 24/7, even with 24 hours of daylight,” researcher Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Montana, told The Associated Press (AP). “By having the camera, it just opens up another avenue and more periods of time we’re able to look and record.” Holt is in the 23rd year of a longterm study of the owls and their primary prey, brown lemmings.

The media division of the Annenberg Foundation provides the new webcam as the latest addition to explore.org’s Pearls of the Planet, which sponsors a variety of live wildlife cams

Read more:

Livestream of Nelson osprey nest gives ‘bird’s eye view’ of parenting pair

By Paula Baker Global News

A webcam west of Nelson is giving people the ability to get a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the life of an osprey.

The camera, which is run by Nelson Hydro and Columbia Wireless, is trained on a nest where an egg is being watched over and warmed by two osprey.

Depending on when you tune in to the Nelson osprey nest livestream, you may get a glimpse of one bird perched on high or both halves of the breeding pair.

When fully grown, ospreys are more than 60 cm long with a wingspan of 1.8 metres. However, the hatchling would be much smaller, weighing just 50 to 60 grams. It’s expected to hatch in just over a month.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1310117/livestream-of-nelson-osprey-nest-gives-birds-eye-view-of-parenting-pair/

Webcam captures secrets of endangered birds

Live stream set up in Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve will help experts study the snowy plover and California least tern.

By Anthony Clark Carpio

March 20, 2013 | 3:34 p.m.

He didn't expect to be staring at his computer screen for hours on end, but Brian Pavloff caught himself doing just that.

Pavloff, president of Variable Speed Solutions in Huntington Beach, had just finished working on a web camera project for the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. Even before it started broadcasting live online on March 11, he couldn't help but stop and stare at his screen.

"I never watch webcams in any length. And then after this project, all of a sudden I find it sitting next to me at night and I can't look away and I'm constantly going back to it," he said. "It's gotten to the point where my wife is telling me, 'Get off the webcam!' And I tell her that I'm only looking at birds."

The birds he's looking at are the western snowy plover and in a month's time, he will be also be looking at the California least tern. They are listed as two of the state's endangered bird species.

And for the first time, these birds will be under the careful watch of a camera, recording all of their nesting habits until the summer. The footage will then be used by researchers and universities to come up with better ways to help these birds get off the endangered species list, said Jayson Ruth, a board member of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust.

"It's fabulous for people all over the world that are interested in these endangered birds," said Mayor Connie Boardman, who is also a board member of the land trust.

Ruth, who is also a science teacher at Huntington Beach High School, has spearheaded this project from the beginning and after seven months has seen it go from an idea to reality.

"It's the first of its kind. Nobody's ever filmed long-term studies of the plovers or the terns," Ruth said. "It's not just a nest camera; it's really a nest site. We're filming an entire colony. We have the remote capability to film the nesting sites. We can zoom in on a nest when they form."

Continued:  http://www.hbindependent.com/news/tn-hbi-0321-bolsa-chica-20130320,0,1521041.story