Choke, choke! Cough, cough! Pardon me while I blow the dust off and post a new blog!
I was going to write a blog on the camera update but Mark did such a good job I’ll just steal his!! (All good writers steal!! LOL)
From Mark:
Hi everyone, I thought I would take a minute to recap the camera swap. As you see in the video, Anthony and I both went up to the nest as we had not as much daylight as we were hoping for so it always goes a little faster with two people. There was a part of the camera bracket that was higher than the camera so we cut that off just to give more clearance around the nest for them to come and go. The old IR unit actually had a hole blown / melted in the side of it so it was obviously an electrical issue. The new one that was installed was not powered up yet because we ran out of time but we hope to accomplish that this coming week.
Our plan was to completely replace the mount with a new one that is less intrusive but again time posed an issue so we decided to snug up the old bracket and make things work until next year when hopefully we can get out there in September.
With the help of mnbutterfly and her husband who you see in the video we were able to bring up the replacement camera and lower the old one. They were a great help!
The new camera is the exact same model as the old. We will take apart the old camera and repair what ever damage there is to it and then it will become our spare or be used at the County fair and State fair to follow the County’s 4-h kids.
We placed tape over the mic hole in an attempt to lower the wind noise. We will have to see how that works.
All in all it was great weather for this time of year, Anthony commented that this would be the first time we worked on the camera in the nest that it wasn't below 10 degrees.
I think we were out there for about 5 hours, pretty quick and clean.
Before I leave this update we want to thank Talon and all of the Moderators as well as everyone at Minnesota Bound for providing such a great structure to the cam and of course a big thanks to the viewers who watch our friends journey every year. So as of today, Sunday November the 17th,...All's Good In The Cottonwood!
Your friends at Broadband, Anthony and Mark
Thank you, Mark and Anthony, for all you do to bring us these great pictures and sounds from the Cottonwood! We all look forward to another great season of watching Mom and Dad bring some more marvelous eaglets into our world.
There are a lot of pics and Razzle’s great videos so I may just have to do a couple more blogs to fit them all in.
See you at the Saturday chats with the new cam to watch!!
TalonStrike
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below or in the chat room. Also, we'll be updating our official MN Bound LIVE Eagles Facebook Page regularly so you can follow along, like, or share with your friends. We have several site moderators this year to help give optimal information to all that want to learn more about these magnificent birds.
MNBound Eagles Switching the Cam ~ Installation Day 11-15-13
They weren't kidding! That is a loooong way up!
Fly-in view from the pond side of the nest
Getting ready.
Heading up!
The babbling brook you can hear on quiet nights at the cam.
A different perspective on the nest!
Mark being acrobatic up at the cam
Sending the new cam up to be installed
Well thats enough for this blog. I will be posting up more pics and the vids Razzle has made during the Saturday chats over the last month and a half in the next few days!
See you then!
TalonStrike