Sunday, May 6, 2018

Feed, Sit, Leave, Rinse, Repeat


by Trina

Every morning I awake to dozens of nest cam videos from the night. The camera is motion triggered, so when there is motion, it starts recording; when the motion stops, it stops recording. If I'm awake and can answer the alert that I get when there is motion, I can make a longer video. When I'm asleep, though, the camera is on and off throughout the night, recording in short 20 to 30 second bursts of activity. Most of the clips are nearly the same sequence of parent feeding, hopping up to the hole to sit with his or her wings directly in front of the camera for a few seconds -- you definitely have to be patient with the lengthy views of an out-of-focus owl wing (ah, first world problems) --  and then leaving to go find more food. Feed, sit, leave (FSL). Return in a minute, or 3 minutes, or 25 minutes. Feed, sit, leave. Repeat. There are variations on the theme. Sometimes Boyle brings DH a kill, giving it to her as she sits in the hole. Sometimes he delivers a kill to her inside the box and she dispenses it to the babies, tearing off small pieces for them. Sometimes he delivers to the babies inside the box. Sometimes he gives her food on a branch outside and she takes it into the owlets. Either way, they are both working so very hard, all through the night, doing some version of the FSL over and over and over:




In these next 2 videos, DH does an FSL-return-FS, and then receives a delivery from Boyle, all within one minute: 



Here, both parents are in the box feeding owlets:


No comments:

Post a Comment