Northern Alberta Birding Hotline

I've set up a web camera, which is currently looking out onto our deck at Hastings Lake, with some feeders in view and the lake in the background.  There has been lots of redpoll and chickadee activity today, along with blue jays, white-breasted nuthatches, and the odd house sparrow.  We had a northern flicker feeding from the table in view a few days ago, and both hairy and downy woodpeckers visit the feeder hanging from the railing.  Feel free to take a look:

http://hastingslake.linksysrem…..tecam.com/

Thanks, Dan.  I like to take a look from work or from home on days that we don't head east to Hastings Lake.  I've moved the camera a bit to give an “overhead” view of the feeding, and a better look over the railing to the lake.  Over the last month, we have had several sightings of moose, deer, and coyotes in the area that the camera looks out on.

The camera is a Linksys camera that communicates wirelessly with my wireless router.  I picked it up at Staples; it retails for about $140.  Set up (to get the camera working) involves installing a program, running it, and plugging the camera directly into the router so that it figures out the configuration itself.  Once that is done, the camera can be disconnected from the router and will communicate wirelessly.

The camera came with a free offer for a web address, which I took advantage of.  Setting that up was slightly more complicated; you have to log into your router and open a channel for web traffic devoted to the camera.  There was a help file on the Linksys site that was pretty useful.  There were a couple of things that I played with, and the settings that I'm using now work well.

I don't know how much it will cost to maintain the url to the camera — my free year has not expired yet!

Hastings Lake — April 24/25

Lots of pelicans in our bay this weekend, as well as great blue herons, goldeneye, lesser scaup, mallards, northern shovelers, and killdeer.  Some activity might be visible on the webcam; scan the bay for pelicans if you happen to look at the link (http://hastingslake.linksysrem…..tecam.com/).  About a dozen tundra swan were in the far bay early in the morning.  Peanuts are lasting longer now — numerous red-winged blackbirds seem to be intimidating the blue jays.  The occassional purple finch and pine siskin are appearing at the deck feeders too.

We did our own snow goose chase this morning (April 25) — a decent sized flock (i.e. a few hundred) of snow geese and white-fronted geese was seen just north of Holden, and a smaller flock of snow geese was seen a little bit further north of Ryley (in the field where the paved highway to Ryley intersects the gravel road that leads to Amisk creek).  We also saw lots of rough-legged and red-winged hawks on this trip, finding a red-winged hawk on a nest right beside Hwy 14 between Ryley and Holden.

Hastings Lake, May 5 2010 — Ventured out midweek to get water delivered, put out some birdseed, and make minor webcam adjustments.  Lots of activity on the bay: pelicans, mallards, northern shovelers, blue- and green-winged teal, pelicans, and a great blue heron.  A moderate sized flock of sandhill cranes flew over the bay, lower than I would have expected.  Red-winged blackbirds, female purple finches, chickadees are at the deck feeders (I saw magpie and crow visit the “peanut table” in the snow yesterday!).  New sighting — pine siskins are around, coming to the thistle feeders.  Was hopeful to see purple martins (reports of some nearby in Lindbrook), but no luck — have not seen any martins or swallows in the last few days.  Starlings look like they are nesting in one of our bird boxes.  Hoping to have some martin activity on the webcam in the not-too-distant future.