WINGSCAPES

Welcome!

To all new Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0, Audubon BirdCam, and PlantCam owners: welcome! If you haven’t already done so, soon you will be downloading images or videos of which you are justifiably proud from your new camera. Therefore, we’d like to take the opportunity to let you know of great place to show off your results: the Wingscapes Photo Gallery.

Using the Wingscapes Photo Gallery, you can share your images as well as view and comment on those uploaded by other Wingscapes camera users. It’s also a great place to get ideas about different ways to set-up your own Wingscapes camera.

You'll Really Be Surprised

If you haven’t stopped by the Wingscapes BirdCam Photo Gallery lately, you'll be quite amazed at the variety of species you can now find there. In addition to some great images, all recorded using the Wingscapes BirdCam and submitted to the site by proud BirdCam owners, of all the most popular feeder-visiting bird species, you will likely find a few surprises as well.

“What sort of surprises?” you may ask. Well, if we told you, they wouldn’t be surprises now would they? Simply follow this link for a BirdCam glimpse of a bird we’d all be amazed to see visiting our feeders.

WIRELESS BirdCam?!?!?!

Read this post. It is important to anyone remotely interested in remote cameras.

See the "Photo Albums" on the upper left corner of this webpage? Check out the album
 Taken on December 20th, 2007

These photos were automatically uploaded to this blog by a wireless router at my home that received images wirelessly from a Wingscapes BirdCam mounted on our deck.  This is all made possible by a very cool new product: the Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card.

We are still experimenting with this card and I should say upfront that we've had some hiccups. However, it is very exciting to report that when we've gotten it to work properly, this wireless 2GB SD card effectively makes the Wingscapes BirdCam WIRELESS!!! This means that I can setup the BirdCam, go to work, and as soon as it captures images of birds, it automatically sends the photos wirelessly to my home computer, an online photo service (the Wingscapes blog, in this case), or both.

This first version of the product has some limitations. It will only transmit .jpg photo files (not our .avi video files). Range is limited by a number of factors (camera type, distance to Wi-Fi router, etc), and there are not many options for controlling the process. We'd like to see the ability to schedule uploads and an option that deleted images from the 2 GB card once they've uploaded.

This product was designed principally for casual photographers who do not want to connect their cameras to a cable in order to get images onto their computer. For that purpose, it works. But, I feel the value of this technology is FAR greater in applications like the BirdCam....where it actually extends the an existing product's capabilities. Expect wireless to become a common feature of digital cameras over the next few years.

Wingscapes tips its hat to the developers at Eye-Fi. They've successfully brought a problem-solving product to market that will surely be a big hit (the product is already racking up awards). We are looking forward to using the Eye-Fi card with the BirdCam and have high hopes for Eye-Fi as they work to improve this new technology. (I also have to give due credit to whoever designed the product packaging for the Eye-Fi. It is one of the coolest boxes I've seen.)

If you want to experiment with an Eye-Fi card in your BirdCam, please go for it. Because the technology is so new, we can not offer support for these wireless cards and I'm sure Eye-Fi can't offer support for application in the BirdCam. But, we got it to work and are having a ball with it. If you use an Eye-Fi with your BirdCam, please let us know how it goes.

Accidental Photos...

When you test motion-sensitive cameras, you can't avoid taking accidental photos of yourself looking like an idiot. I've collected many of these ridiculous images over the past few months.

Early Photos...

Here are some images taken during very early camera tests. Before seeing these photos, we were unaware that Red-bellied and Red-headed woodpeckers were visiting the feeders. They had been coming in the middle of the day while everyone was at work. Check back periodically to see more recent images.