The end of a short story in life…

This afternoon the birdsnest outside my office window has been plundered by a crow or raven. Even though the parent-birds got reinforcement by two other fieldfares they never had a chance.

The small birds only had a few days of life but they somehow enriched my days.

...they just had a few days to live...
…they just had a few days to live…
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BirdCam – feeding in slow-motion

Because there was a problem with the Raspberry Pi again today, I took the opportunity to film my fieldfares live for a short while. In this slow-motion video you can see how first the female arrives at the nest with a fresh worm. A short while later also the male arrives with a beak full of worms for the small ones:

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Hatching time

"I'm hungry!"
“I’m hungry!”

Ten days Mrs Fieldfare has been sitting in her nest – today was the big day: until late afternoon three eggs had hatched. Now also Mr Fieldfare has to show some effort who has not been much around the nest lately.

Mr and Mrs Fieldfare at the nest.
Mr and Mrs Fieldfare at the nest.

This is the first day in the life of the young fieldfares in time lapse:

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First day with BirdCam

Last Friday I heard some strange noises outside my office window. To my big surprise I then noticed that there was a bird’s nest growing on the window sill. It did not take long until I even saw the new tenant moving in:

Outside my office window...
Outside my office window…

So far I have identified the birds as Song thrushs and the nest was steadily growing until about lunch time. After lunch no bird returned and I was almost afraid that something might have scared them off. However, I still planned to install a webcam to watch the nest during the coming weeks.

In the evening I set up a left-over Raspberry Pi Model A and an simple USB webcam. It’s running Raspbian Jessie and fswebcam and curl using a cron-ed script file. The camera itself is duct-taped to the inside of my office window.

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Read more about the article A bicycle trip: all municipalities in Uppsala county – on a day
Uppsala county and its eight municipalities (map borrowed from the cache description).

A bicycle trip: all municipalities in Uppsala county – on a day

There is a geocaching challenge in Uppsala: to visit all 8 municipalities in the county of Uppsala within 24 hours. When I first saw this challenge, I wondered if it…

Continue ReadingA bicycle trip: all municipalities in Uppsala county – on a day