Pi-Birdies!...and more

2015 is coming to an end....an amazing year with several surprises and rollercoaster rides! I loved every bit.

My nesting box activities did however "suffer" from my other "adventures", but!....I had time to reflect on a few modification which I intent to make.

I wish to construct a nesting box which is more modular. More easily adaptable to configuration changes and adjustments I might have to make to the optical unit as the seasons progress.

The second thing I wish to implement is a simple, one-off solution for all the nerdiness I wish to install in the nesting boxes. By this I mean pressure sensors, temperature sensors, humidity sensors and the likes. The solutions I had so far, for lack of time, and for lack of me being a dedicated electronics person, were improvised solution requiring multiple platforms. One for the cameras, one for the temperature sensors, one for the lighting: a high maintenance configuration which, in case of lack of time, ended up suffering because I ended up dedicating my little spare time to other things.

And this is where the pi-ness comes in!

I eyed the raspberry pi (https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-2-model-b/) as my solution!

It struck me a near-perfect as can be for my needs....including the non-negligible fact that it is open-source, allowing me to profit from all the genial minds out there improving the platform for the most varied of applications.

So this is how I now plan to turn the "birdies" into "pi-birdies".....

I decided to indulge into this endevour on the 12th of Decemeber. Ordered everything I thought I might need the same day and by the 18th (which was my last day at home prior to a weekend with my PhD Students and then some work-related travel) I had all I needed.

And this is how it continued....

Step 1: take picture....and put the basics together...

 

Step 2: install NOOBS from micro SD card...

 

 

Step 3: excitement at booting and ensuing check that space activities had not continued without me in the meantime...

 

Step 4: first light....

 

Step 5: first senses....

 

Step 5: IR vision test...

And then, and then I killed the internet.

I am only kidding, as the only thing I did manage to do was kill internet on my pi.
The thing I want to do is have a nesting box that can transmit information - optical and sensory - via wifi but at the same time be an isolated, stand-alone system. A curious soul passing by can then just tune in and check what is happening inside.

So I wanted to set-up a point-to-point wifi connection, but I kind of got stuck as I wish the two things to be functional in parallel. Now, I might sound like I know what I am talking about, but I don't. So for now I am going to leave things as they are and add bluetooth capability and then decide at a later stage, as.....

...my main priority is to have an optical  stream with overlayed sensory information ...very much like this:

And this is the current state of affairs at the Pi-Nest!

As for other thoughts.... this gave me something to chew on:
"It's the way a man chooses to limit himself that determines his character. A man without habits, consistency, redundency - and hence boredom - is not human. He's insane." [The Dice Man, George Cockcroft].

Amazingness....!

I know perfectly well, that this should be a blog about birdies....

...but when amazingness hits you, it just hits you, and overwhelmingness ensues.

And it's been a week of amazingness and overwhelmingness and utter coolness.

Enabling is just amazing.

Ok, that is all I have to say and processed...for now.

Emptiness

Sadly the hatchlings left while I was away, so unfortunately I missed it. 

I however think that everything went well. The protective metal grating that I had placed before leaving was still intact. So I believe that the cats did not attempt to catch the hatchlings.

I had put the metal grating in place as I had observed multiple times that two cats, attracted by the incessant chirping, more or less impatiently sat underneath the nesting box looking up.

I cleared out the nesting box this morning. There were no unhatched eggs. Maybe, as it is still quite early in the season, a new pair will come and nest. I am, however not very optimistic, as there are just toooo many cats.

When there are several nesting options available, then why take the worst one possible?!

.....Options. It is funny how given no options lack of freedom is regretted, complaints follow. But, when given options, hell breaks loose and “man” feels truly lost. 

It would thus seem that those famous "boxes" are not just limiting but seen as protective.

Why? Is not the ideal situation one in which one can create options for one’s self and for others, for the future?

And then there was...sound.....

Sere 'n Geti

Many many years ago in a land far far away there lived a lonely spider. Sere was his name. He spent his days waiting and waiting. Waiting hungrily under the hot sun hoping for a dizzy fly to come by. 

Now, Sere was an intelligent spider and he tried many tricks and moved to many spots always hoping for a dizzy fly: tree tops and rock cracks, earth mounds and shrub leaves, but no flies came by and he grew hungrier and hungrier.

The land was arid and the sun was hot and Sere did not like to sit under the burning sun. But the land Sere had known his lifelong only knew sun and so Sere looked for shade wherever he could.

One day as he crouched and waited he started wondering if there was anything other than sun, perhaps in another land. Something that brought coolness like the night did. And the more he thought the more he grew convinced that there must be. Rain he called it. But as he named it he also realized that if this rain would always fall he, Sere the fly-spider, would be even hungrier because dizzy flies don't fly when it rains.

"Hmmm", he thought, "if I could eat grass and have long legs to jump from one leaf of grass to the other then I would be a happy jumpy spider."

That day when the sun disappeared behind the horizon and Sere fell asleep, rain began to fall and wet the land and the land began to change. Grass began to grow where there had been only dust. And Sere too began to change - his legs, his eyes, his body.

The morning came and as Sere woke up he smelt the wet earth and crawling hungrily from under the rocks he looked around - he was in the midst of a sea of green! He was hungry and began to eat when all of a sudden he realized that he, a fly-spider, was eating grass! He stopped chewing, a little leaf hanging from his  jaw, examined himself and spitting out the little leaf he cried "I have lost two legs!". Panic seized him and up he jumped! Higher and higher he rose and then faster and faster he fell. "Help" he screamed - but then nothing happened. He was safe on another leaf of grass, close to a grasshopper.

"I have lost two legs!" he screamed at the grasshopper.

"No you haven't", replied the grasshopper.

"But I should have eight legs!", cried Sere.

"You've been eating too much weed" replied the grasshopper, "spiders have eight legs and you're a grasshopper. Now let me be, I'm hungry." And with that the grasshopper jumped away.

A grasshopper? I'm a grasshopper? Sere looked again at himself and indeed he was a grasshopper. A grasshopper! "I need a new name" he thought, "Hmmm...Geti, yes! I will be Geti the grasshopper!"

And so it came to be that in the land of endless sun and endless rain, with each change of season, Sere the spider became Geti the grasshopper and the land came to be known as Sere 'n Geti.

Tanzania...

A week after first light

A week has passed since the hatchlings have "seen" first light (they actually hatch with closed eyes). I was away the whole week and upon my return I was delighted to discover that the chirping from the nesting box has significantly increased.  From the live-feed I can distinguish 4 or 5, which is not very many given that Blue Tits generally lay in the order of 10 eggs.

I love to just sit outside and watch as the busy parents fly in and out and to hear an outburst of high-pitched chirping every time. 

I love it so much that I sometime sneak up to the nesting box and tap gently on it to trigger those hungry music boxes.

Today, as I was looking at the live stream I was trying to determine whether I will be home when they leave the nest in approximately two weeks. I might be lucky. It truly is the best part of it all: to see the little ones leave the nest. 

And it is nice and amazing how it is all more or less pre-programmed. This in turn gives it all an irrefutable sense of certainty, equally justified and unjustified. The uninvolved observer. The bird's eye view.

Today I was told that at my age life is good. As the lovely person that was telling me is more than a few years older, I for a second wondered if those words spoken to me were triggered by the same “bird's eye view” and associated tranquillity. 

To have both, to master both youth and this irrefutably experience-given, though not necessarily legitimate, tranquillity while pushing beyond all experience-conceived boundaries…… to master youth of the mind knowing that it will never abandon you and thus achieve the tranquillity necessary to do exactly that which is necessary at the precise moment when it is needed…. 

...a challenge for all ages alike.

Life outside of the eggshells has begun...

The eggs have hatched!

This morning I peeked at the video and noticed the female leaving. Shortly afterwards the male came in with a tiny tiny worm in its beak.

How did I figure out it was the male? Because he behaved like all males when the eggs have just hatched and they have to interact with the hatchlings for the first time. It is really amazing and amusing. The behavioral change of the males over the first few days after hatching is truly fascinating.

Generally, early after hatching, the female spends most of the day warming the small hatchlings (they have no way of controlling their temperature and keeping warm), so when the male comes in, he gives her the food he has brought in for the hatchlings and she then proceeds to feed them.

So, when, for the first time the male comes in and there is no female, the male is taken aback and looks like he does not quite know what to do. After a few seconds of hesitation and puzzlement, he approaches the nest and feeds the hatchlings himself.

Gradually the male gets used to interacting with the hatchlings himself: calls to them to let them know that he is there with food and up pop the big heads with beaks wide open.

And after he has done this a couple of times he is then reluctant to give the food to the female and wants to feed the hatchlings himself. This is what I have observed in the last couple of years.

And it fascinates me every time.