Our Story
We put up this box in 2015, hoping we would get a pair of American Kestrels nesting in it. Our first year we were disappointed - a pair of European Starlings took up residence. However, the very next year we got our first Kestrels. We named them Bob and Mary, and they have enjoyed the box ever since. Their first year they laid five eggs, and after that we decided to put in a camera and start live streaming them! The next year we watched the miraculous event of our beautiful hard-working Bob and Mary raise six kestrels all the way to adulthood. Even the runt, who was two days behind, was able to make it out of the nest. In 2020 they laid five eggs again, and once again in 2021 they have five eggs. In 2022, they laid five eggs but only four hatched. In 2023, they raised five chicks to adulthood.
Our setup
Our camera runs off of an extension cable from our house. We built the box ourselves out of pine. We take the box down every winter, and rehang it late January after cleaning out the old material and replacing it with new wood chips.
Technical jargon:
We have a long-range wi-fi system that is connected to the camera (Wyze Cam v3). We chose this camera because it is cheap and provides a consistent feed of video to YouTube, which can be fussy. We have a dedicated streaming computer that runs the software OBS (Open Broadcasting Software). OBS sends the video to the YouTube channel.
Technical jargon:
We have a long-range wi-fi system that is connected to the camera (Wyze Cam v3). We chose this camera because it is cheap and provides a consistent feed of video to YouTube, which can be fussy. We have a dedicated streaming computer that runs the software OBS (Open Broadcasting Software). OBS sends the video to the YouTube channel.