Jen Puleston, Tom Shea, Will Throwe and Tom Throwe documenting the events and bundling the cable in March 2003 in Brookhaven.
The journey of the live video and sound of the osprey family starts at the top of a 38-foot pole on the south shore of Long Island. To provide a good view of the nest with minimal disturbance to the birds, the camera and microphone are mounted at the end of a slender arm attached beneath the nest platform. The pole arm is of welded steel with jumper stays to keep it rigid. This places the camera above and about three feet away from the nest. At the very top is a perch to give the osprey a convenient place to rest and, not incidentally, to keep them from landing on the camera. Care was taken in the design to minimize relative motion between the camera mount and the nest and to provide a means of performing maintenance on the camera. The support arm was installed on the pole in February, while the ospreys were at their winter residence in the Bahamas.

The video camera is a Panasonic model WV-NP472 with low light capabilities. Coupled with a low power light source, this camera is capable of taking black and white video at night as well as normal color daylight pictures. We can change the zoom on the lens to make it easier to follow the development of the young birds. A stereo microphone provides sound.

A set of cables carries power and control signals to the nest as well as video and sound back to a computer nearby. The sound and picture signals are processed by a "video capture card" appropriately named the "Osprey-210" made by ViewCast Corporation. The "Helix Producer" software from RealNetworks controls the card. The software takes the output of the capture card and converts it into streaming media in the "RealMedia" format. Actually, several simultaneous streams are created to accommodate viewers with both broadband and dialup Internet connections.

The aggregate stream of around 400 kilobits per second is uploaded to a computer located at Brookhaven National Laboratory using the local Optimum Online service of Cablevision. This second machine acts as the video server to make the live streams from the computer at the nest site available to multiple users at once. It runs the Helix Universal Server software, also from RealNetworks. An interested bird watcher's RealPlayer or RealOne player will automatically select the appropriate stream for their Internet connection to view the live video and audio. The server software also archives the streams so that individual files of highlights of the ospreys can be made.

So go to the web site www.postmorrow.org/OspreyFund/ and watch the development of a new family of these spectacular birds.

By Tom Shea, Tom Throwe, Rick Mohlman, Tom Ludlam

Starting in mid-March a video camera has been focused on an osprey nest and the images can be seen on the Web. Using the most advanced technology, the Dennis Puleston Osprey Fund is providing this unparalleled access to one of Long Island's most renowned birds.

The images seen over the Web of the daily lives of the osprey as they court, mate, lay and incubate their eggs and raise their young will provide a unique opportunity to learn about the daily lives of a bird, observations that can be learned no other way.
Teachers, no doubt, will find many ways to incorporate what their students can see into a daily lesson. Being a frequent and consistent watcher of the daily activities of this nesting bird can help answer many questions and will help stimulate many more.

A few questions might help students get started.

>Can you tell the female from the male?

>Which adult does the incubation? Or do both? Equal time?

>What date are the eggs laid?

>What date do the eggs hatch?

>What behavior do you see when an adult returns to the nest?

>What kind of fish do they ospreys eat?

>What color eyes do they have?

>How do the young behave toward each other?

Since this camera provides the first opportunity to observe continuously day and night the activities in a nest, it is likely that new things will be learned about osprey behavior in a non-intrusive way. This will be the first time that students can watch the reproduction of an osprey from their arrival in mid to late March until the end of breeding in mid August.

We also would like to encourage students and teachers to use the Web site to list observations on ospreys around Long Island. Please let us know any ideas you might have about this project. We would like to receive feedback regarding educational projects in order to assist in the preservation of ospreys on Long Island as well as to improve our web site and share information with others.