Bird Song Ringtones for your phone!

I've just found a site that allows me to provide my recorded bird songs as ringtones! I'm starting off with the Bewick's Wren song I use on my own phone, and a Song Sparrow song used by my wife. Believe me, you won't wonder whose phone is ringing when you use these one-of-a-kind ringtones!

Just listen to the previews, select the song you want, and it will be downloaded to your phone for the special introductory price only $1.99!

[UPDATED ABOVE]

New Steller's Jay page

I've added a new page for the Stellar's Jay, which has two audio files (and spectrograms) of the Jay's raucous calls, both of the recent videos, and a nice photo of a jay with a peanut in his mouth.

Steller's Jay weighing peanuts

We put out peanuts for the Steller's Jays at SeattleBirdCam.com, and the jays never just pick up a peanut to eat. They always pick one up, put it back down, then pick up another as if comparing their weights, before deciding which peanut to fly off with. Here's an example of that amusing behavior.

Steller's Jay

I love watching these Jays come around and I keep a supply of peanuts ready for them at the SeattleBirdCam.com.

Live video experiment

UPDATE: This experiment is over. See the December 21 2007 post for the latest live video experiment.

I've been wanting to provide a live video feed of the BirdCam for years, and after much experimentation, I've got something for you to try out.

To view the live video, you will need:
- the latest Yahoo Messenger application installed on your PC/Mac/Linux box
- a Yahoo id.

Details on how to download and install Messenger and get an ID are at:
http://messenger.yahoo.com/newtoim.php#q3

(You may want to use the "Custom Install" option to install only Messenger, and not the other Yahoo "optional" products.)

After you've completed these steps and have Messenger running, add a new contact named "seattlebirdcam". This will send a message to me and I'll approve the request as soon as I can (this may take several hours if I don't happen to be sitting at my computer).

If the live video is running, you'll see a "View My Webcam" label next to the "SeattleBirdCam.com" id. Just click on this label and a video window should pop up and, after a few moments, start displaying the live video feed. In my testing, I've found that a display rate of about 3 updates per second is typical.

Let me know how this works for you! Please leave your comments and questions here in this blog post comment section so that everyone can see them.

Good luck!

Bathing Beauty Towhee

Since I installed a birdbath at the Seattle BirdCam this summer, I've been amazed at how many birds use it for drinking and bathing. It's so popular I may have to start the Seattle BirdBathCam. This Rufous-Sided Towhee is enjoying the waters.

Updates in progress...

You may notice some strange images showing up on the live birdcam for the next few days while I try to get motion detection working. If it works, should have more pictures of birds and less of an empty feeder.