Communicating with the Birds (and screen-printing help)

It's National Science Week this week, with the theme of communication. So Derby Museums gave  a special lunchtime lecture today, looking at how we have been reaching audiences with our use of new technology. Afterwards we went to Cathedral Green for a bit of peregrine-spotting. where we all counted ourselves immensely fortunate to be able to see our two birds mating briefly on top of the highest point of the tower.

A photographer from the Derby Telegraph came along, though from Craig's picture below it does looks more like we were interested in checking out his dandruff than looking for peregrines! Perhaps someone here can suggest a better caption than the one below. (If so, we'll replace it.)

Nick Moyes and Roger Shelley (centre) from Derby Museums with a
Derby Telegraph photographer on Cathedral Green.

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Instructions on how make a screenprint & post it on Flickr

Whilst watching the webcams you notice something happening and you want to capture it and share it on Flickr. The process is simple and doesn’t take long so here’s how to do it:

The Print Screen button is at the top right of the keyboard.

So, with Internet Explorer open, view the web cams. Make sure the screen is un-obscured by either your mouse cursor or any other programme. Pressing the Print Screen button takes a snapshot of everything you are viewing on your monitor. Pressing the button doesn’t save it to a picture file. You have to do that manually.

So, you now have your image in the memory of the computer waiting for you to do something with it. The best programme for putting that picture in is Paint. This can be located under your Window’s Start Menu, Programs, Accessories. If you are using an up to date Windows operating system, e.g. XP, you may not initially see Paint there. You may need to press on the two downward facing arrows to expand what you see.

With Paint now open you can put your printed screen into it. Press the “Edit” option at the top of the screen and then press “Paste”.

Unfortunately you have the whole of your computer screen on your screenshot and that’s probably not what you want. So now you need to remove all the unnecessary information. Using the scroll bars on the side of the Paint programme to move them so that you can see clearly and wholly your new screenshot webcam. You will see at the side of Paint (this may be different for older versions of the programme) your editing options. At the top is a dotted square button, holding your mouse over that button it will select it if you press the button. This then allows you to select the area of your screenshot which you want to do something with.

From the top corner of your print screened web camera press and hold the left hand mouse button. Drag the mouse down to the bottom opposite corner of the camera and release the mouse button. With the box now around the area that you want go up to the “Edit” option and press “Cut”. The picture seems to vanish but, just like the screenshot, it’s been saved into the computer memory again waiting for you to do something with it. To do this press on the “File” button, then “New”. The computer will ask you a question of do you want to save your work... press “No”. You now have a completely empty Paint screen. Go back to “Edit” and press “Paste”.

You now have your picture of the web camera in a nice simple looking picture. Save it by pressing “File”, “Save” . It will ask you to give the work a title and a location of where to save it. Naming is simple, what the birds are doing – e.g. feeding, call it Feeding Peregrine1. As for location, I prefer to place it on the desktop, makes it easier to find.

Now open up Flickr and sign in to your normal account. You will see on the right hand side of the website is “Upload Photos & Videos”. Pressing that it takes you to another screen. In the centre is a gray box with steps, starting at step 1. Pressing ‘Choose Photo and Video’ will bring up a box asking you to locate the picture. You know where it is (on your desktop) and what it’s called( “Feeding Peregrine 1”). It gives you the option to add more if you want, otherwise press Upload Photos and Videos. It will then upload it to the site. This doesn’t mean it removes it from your computer, merely copies it. Next give it a description (title) and press Save.

To put that picture in the Derby Cathedral Peregrine picture pool simply go to it and you will see an ‘Add photo link’ above the pictures. Pressing that takes you to all the pictures you have taken, including the one you just saved. Press on that picture and press ‘Add To Group’. Job done.
Thanks to Craig for these helpful instructions which we have edited down a touch to save space. Let us know if you can't follow or understand anything - or if you can!

Scheduled Downtime

Our webcams will be unavailable during Monday 21st September. This is due to the electricity supply to The Silk Mill Museum needing to be disconnected. As a result the Museum itself will also be closed to the public on that day.


Before our webcam pictures can reach your computer, they first go via a radio link to the nearby Silk Mill museum. From there they go via a laser link (shown above) to a corresponding unit on Derby Assembly Rooms. And from there, well lots of other strange and amazing things happen before they reach you. But if one link in the chain is broken - no webcams.


So instead, why not spend the time planning to watch the International Space Station as it flies overhead? I've just used my standard birding telescope to watch the ISS fly over the UK, using a fantastic website to predict when it will be seen from your own location on earth, and from what direction of the night sky it will appear from. I didn't need a 'scope or even binoculars to see it because on some fly-overs it can be as bright or brighter than any star in the night sky. But with a birdwatching scope it was a wondrous sight to watch the ISS zoom past some 400 miles up, then fade away to dull red and disappear into the earth's shadow, and then to turn the telescope onto Jupiter. It's really bright in the night sky and tonight all four of its well-known "Galilean" moons were clearly visible, lined up in an almost perfectly line to the right of the massive planet. The position of the moons change from night to night -even hour to hour - so from now on I shall be using my birdwatching telescope to look for many other things in the sky apart from peregrines!

Temporary Camera Problem

After yesterday's succesful ringing, (see video here) our webcam images have frozen this evening. They should be back online tomorrow morning. After this evening's service, Tony, our stalwart Head Verger, climbed the 82 steps of the tower to the halfway point to check our internet equipment. All seemed fine, so we think the fault must lie with the end of the 2-way radio internet link in The Silk Mill - Derby's Museums of Social and Industrial History. We're hoping its simply a case of an accidental unplugging of our wireless bridge connection. Easily done in today's climate of trying to save council tax payer's money and the environment by switching off all unnecessary equipment. We'll see tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here are some of today's pictures uploaded to our Flickr Group Pool:
by rejsharp

Wow! Big Audience; Big Screen; Big Wait

Wow!
Firstly, may I say how heartening it's been to read so many of your comments left on the last few blog entries. It's clear that many of you, like us, are on tenterhooks, wondering when the chicks will take flight. Will they; won't they? They certainly haven't yet.
It's been grey and wet in Derby for the last day or so, and set to get worse. Typical - we have a major Springwatch Festival at Osmaston Park in Derby on Sunday from 11am - 4pm, so now we've fingers crossed for good weather there, too.


And Wow!
Look at that screen! No, it's not a fake picture, it's Derby's newest piece of technology - a giant screen for broadcasting local and national events in our city's Market Place. It went live with our video stream yesterday, taking fast-moving pictures direct from Derby Cathedral's webcam - and quite a few heads were turning to make out what on earth it was showing. You know, of course.

The Big Screen's offical launch is next week, but they sneaked our birds in before they have their own offical launch party, high up in the skies over Derby.

And wow again!
This time, Barry, one of the regular peregrine watchers outside Derby Cathedral couldn't contain his excitement yesterday after seeing our female stoop at high speed in a 45 degree angle above the tower to take a bird. She missed her quarry, but her power and speed obviously impressed him greatly. Our birds rarely hunting right over people's heads in Derby city centre, so this was a lucky sighting, indeed.

And finally, wow! Over 155,000 visitors already. Earlier this season the project team members each bet on how many hits we'd have before the birds fledged. Last year, when we put our webcam plans together, I estimated 30,000 visitors overall. Later, my bet went up to 125,000. Wow - it's so good to lose sometimes.

Zooming Marvellous

Until a couple of weeks ago the only way to zoom in our cameras was to climb the first 82 steps of the spiral stone staircase inside Derby Cathedral's mediaeval tower. There we could connect a hand controller to adjust the camera. But Derby photograper and electronics expert, John Salloway, recently built us a simple relay device to replace it. By connecting this device to our Axis video server I can now control the camera over the internet, and get wonderful shots like these. So if the webcam picture changes whilst your watching, you'll know that I'm there fiddling again. It's also clear that our two chicks are starting to lose their sweet looks!

How things have moved on

Thinking back to this time last year, we were guessing whether the birds had laid eggs, how many and whether incubation had begun or not (the breeding season was some three weeks later, so incubation had hardly begun by this date). Now of course we can click a button and see the incubating parent, night and day which is quite magical! Twelve months ago, it was seeing the very tip of a wing poking up above the front of the platform that finally proved that incubation was taking place and that eggs had, indeed, been laid.
People visiting the webcam pictures or reading this blog will hardly be aware of the extra-ordinary amount of work which our partner Nick Moyes at Derby Museum has devoted to this project since the autumn in order to get to this state of affairs. As someone involved with this project from the outset, I must applaud his energy, skill, ingenuity and sheer hard work in getting the cameras up and producing such high quality pictures. Believe me it has not been easy, far from it!
Meanwhile, the wildlife trust is planning the public watch point events on Cathedral Green and prey recording continues. A little grebe corpse was found on 20th and on 24th, a golden plover, albeit a rather old and maggoty one!
In half term the wildlife trust will hold four 'family activity sessions' at the cathedral, focussed on the peregrines, and the museum will hold another in June. More on this later.

Almost Too Popular!

Over 7,000 visitors since last week - and we're now really feeling the strain. 800 users were logged on at one time on Thursday!

Please, please may we ask you not to keep the peregrine webcam open on your computer when you're not looking at it? So many people have been doing this (including me!) that it's causing an absolutely huge drain on the servers supplying these pictures. We might have to reduce the image size or limit connection time if we don't reduce data demand. It's like leaving a tap running all day just in case you get thirsty.

It's easy to get around this: Rather than go straight to the webcam page, go here first: www.derby.gov.uk/peregrine Then, click on the obvious link to the temporary webcam page to view the cameras. Afterwards simply click your "Back" button to return to the main peregrine page. (You can keep that page open for as long as you like) To view the cameras again, simply click the "Forwards" button on your browser, and so on.

Alternatively, bookmark the webcam page and close it after viewing.

Streamdays.com are providing an absolutely superb service, at very reasonable cost. It's proving so popular that, to quote their Managing Director, Frank Crouwel, "To be quite [honest] with you, we have never experienced anything like this in the seven years we have been involved with webcam hosting. "

It's great being popular, and we think of data as being free - but it costs these guys to supply data to each and every one of you. Not even the servers at Derby City Council could do what they are doing. So please help them to help us! Or we might have to scale down the service in some way.

Thank you for your co-operation
Nick Moyes
Derby Museum & Art Gallery

Follow this link to see more webcams hosted by Streamdays

So, egg-sighted!

A delightful surprise awaited us this morning when we turned on the monitor in the cathedral tower - we have our first egg! It was laid at 5.46am on Tuesday 3rd April, and was captured on film under infrared illumination. We will be working hard over the next couple of evenings to try and bring you some video clips. Meanwhile the moment of egg laying was shown on Wednesday evening on BBC TV's "East Midlands Today", and you can watch the news clip here.

Obviously everyone involved in the project is really excited, and we're hoping it won't be the only one. (No further egg was seen when we check again on Thursday)

Just before laying, she stood absolutely still in the nest scrape for a full 40 minutes, before slowly turning round just once, after which we got our first glimpse of the egg. By daybreak we saw the egg in its full colour, a beautiful dark, rich red/brown. They both seemed so proud - as are we! The most usual clutch size in peregrines is four. The eggs are reddish-brown and are laid at intervals of about two days. Only when the clutch is complete will the female (the falcon) begin incubation. The male will then do all the hunting, providing her with food. She will leave the eggs to feed and the male will take over incubation while she does. However, when she's ready, she soon returns and ousts the male from the eggs.

We're really sorry (and not a little frustrated) that we still can't bring you live webcam pictures, but this doesn't seem too far away now. We're assured by Capita, who are Derby Council's IT consultants, that they can get our first image stream out to you by Monday 16th April, if not before. The wireless internet connection is nearly complete, and it's then just the job of configuring our video server to send out the pictures. Whether the first images you get to see are static pictures or a video stream depends on how easily Capita find it to send stuff out from behind our firewall.

Technical Stuff

Made contact with Capita today to start getting costs sorted out. Can we get a wireless radio link from Derby Cathedral Tower to our own servers? If we can't, then this project could costs us a lot more than we bargained for. Capita do all the technical IT support for Derby City Council, and there was lots of enthusiasm, so we’re hopeful they’ll fully support the project and help our keep costs down to an absolute minimum. Now we need to get on to the camera suppliers and check out their views about mounting the remote focus cameras and how far away they can be whilst still giving us night vision.