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I've been kind of pre-occupied this past week by the discovery of a new stork nest. Not an awful lot of storks around Minneapolis (although we are again blessed with Bald Eagles, Great Blue Herons and White Egrets, among others).
But the last couple of years some of my genealogy pals have tipped me to European Stork Cams, aimed at stork nests in remote, and not so remote locations, at a time of year when the eggs are about to hatch. This year I have been "Stork Watching a nest near a small town called Ustron in southern Poland near the Czech Republic border, a bit southwest of Wadowice, where Pope John Paul II was born (After all, this is a Catholic blog, so I'd better drop the occasional Catholic reference into my posts or my St Blog's pals will complain to the pastor).
"Our" nest has two storks (they mate annually) who are caring for four eggs that haven't hatched yet, but it should be any day now. There is a camera and sound on the nest 24/7 with color in the day and infra-red or some kind of "night-vision" at night. The storks take turns tending the nest while the other goes off in search of bugs, worms, fish, frogs, snakes, etc. I'm not sure how they handle feeding the newly hatched "storklets." But we can all do research on this.
I'm keeping a stork cam log that I distribute to some friends. If you want, play along and let me know what you see and at what time you see it (Poland is 6 hours ahead of Eastern U.S. Time, and 7 hours ahead of Minneapolis. So it is 4:17 p.m. on May 20 in Ustron as I type this.
If you want to watch, go to: http://bocian.polska.pl/transmisja2.htm
The site is in Polish, but below the photo of the two storks, click on the words "transmisia na zywo." Make sure your sound is on. Of course you will need to have a Windows or Mac program that can handle this. Most of us do and you probably will be probably be prompted to download one if you don't have it already.
In my next post, I'll give you some links and some updates as to what we have seen the past few days to get a feel for what is happening.
2 comments:
I started watching those storks in Poland last year, too. There is a list called Polish_Genius for genalogy, culture, etc. where people were discussing them. There are other sites, too. The link that you gave is not working yet, this year. They need some financial help, as it was through a school. They do have another site with some things online, but not the excellent camera that we saw last year. However, there are other web cams where you can watch the storks.
I made a list of some that I know of, and that others have told me about, and put them on my blog under "Stork Sites" on the sidebar.
I did some drawings of the storks as I watched last year. Those are on my blog, also, and are in the older posts.
This year, I have been watching the nest at Przgodzic most. They have an animation at the bottom that shows how many eggs are in the nest and how many have hatched. As of this morning, 3 out of 5 eggs have hatched.
Just an FYI for those who are fascinated by the storks.
Hi, Cecilia.
I subscribe to Polish Genius (I think she's in Texas, too) and share my stork info with them. Debbie, the listMom, just came back from a three week or so trip to Poland and she gave the Ustron folks something like $400 that was collected from members of the list.
I see the "delay" picture of the nest is working, but not the "live" picture camera (as you point out).
The clock seems to be working, but I don't know if that picture is changing as there are no storks in the nest right now at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday May 13.
http://www.bociany.edu.pl/
Thanks for checking in. I'll add you to my "stork list" and if good images show up, I'll send them out.
I'll probably post to the Bird Forum too. It is in English:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=55444&page=5
Ray Marshall
Minneapolis
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