Today was an AWESOME DAY!
May 27, 2009
Lot's of good things happened today. I managed to get a number of things done that I had been planning for a long time. It's a good feeling to cross off a few things on the every lengthening "to do" list.
The new Osprey Cam is online and running pretty well. Check it (and them) out! There appear to be three birds using the nest and I'm not entirely sure what that's about, but it's possible one of the chicks from last summer has returned with the adults. I'm guessing it will get booted out when the new chicks arrive. It will be fun to watch and see what happens.
The cam is located on the east side of the building and just a bit lower than the nest itself. The nest is about 100-150 feet away on the other side of the parking lot. Any of you who have been there are probably very familiar with this nest. It's been successful several years in a row. I'm hoping that this summer the streak continues.
I can't thank Nick and Bob, of our maintenance staff, enough for the amazing job they did putting the camera up. They were over using the lift to do some other work on the building and we tagged installing the new cam onto their day as well. We have pictures of them in the lift and I hope to get some of those online soon, maybe tomorrow. Mike in our IT shop pulled all the technical ends of things together and I kind of stood around and lifted things, moved things, and stared at the computer monitor and yelled things like..."a little to the left...no too much...back a bit." They were very patient with me and it paid off.
The one glitch (there always seems to be at least one) is that it's very very windy at St. Mary. The camera seems to vibrate a bit and because it has such a big zoom lens on it, sometimes the image is blurred. If you wait for the image to cycle, you will probably see a clear one on the next round. I'm going to have to wait until it's not windy over there (I can hear many of you now saying "yeah like that ever happens") and make sure that wind is the problem. Mornings are calmer I hear. We will see.
Another thing I managed to get changed today is very minor but has generated a lot of email. The time on the Two Medicine camera has been off by an hour for a while. Several people (you know who you are) have been emailing me to get that fixed. So check that off the list as well. Tomorrow the IT guys Tim, Mike, and Ron are heading to Goat Haunt. If they have time they are going to turn that cam on for the summer also. Wohoo!
So...any day you can get out of the office and into the park is a good day. Today I managed to do that and get a bunch of stuff done that had been on the back burner for a long time.
Let me know how you like the new cam and if you see any good shots that should go in the gallery, send them my way. Directions for emailing images are on the .
:-) Bill
