Bird's-eye view
<p>Matt Powers, journeyman electrician with Thorco Electrical Construction, Inc., tightens bolts while installing an arm to support a camera that will provide a live feed on an osprey nest on the top of a 75-foot pole over McEuen Park. Monday crews began the installation of three cameras and are slated to finish the project today. The City of Coeur d’Alene will provide a live feed of the birds’ nests on their website www.cdaid.org. The feed should be available for viewing in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Matt Powers finishes the installment on the first of three osprey cameras on Monday.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - The public will soon have a bird's-eye view of nesting osprey at McEuen Park.
The first of three nest cameras was installed Monday at the Coeur d'Alene park.
Interim Parks Director Bill Greenwood told The Press that city crews and employees with Thorco Electric Inc., a Coeur d'Alene-based construction company, hope to have a camera installed in each of the park's nesting posts by the end of the week. Once the cameras are online - hopefully before the sea hawks begin to arrive at the end of March - the live video stream can be viewed through the city's website, www.cdaid.org.
"It's been in the works for a while," Greenwood said of the installation project. "But this just seemed like the opportune time to get it done."
Not only did the construction of McEuen Park put the necessary infrastructure in place to provide power to the cameras, several donors stepped up to make it possible. Greenwood said two of the cameras were donated by Denny Davis and The Reed Foundation and the other was donated by Mary Sanderson.
"Without them it wouldn't have happened," Greenwood said. "Particularly Thorco, they've really come to the plate for us with donating material to this project."
Greenwood said the reason cameras are being installed on each of the posts has to do with the nesting habits of the birds. Not only is it impossible to know which post the Osprey will select for its nest, the birds also tend to build more than one.
"They lay staggered eggs so they'll have one that will hatch and it'll kind of get its wings up and moving," Greenwood said. "Later on it will have another one that will hatch so that juvenile bird gets pushed out of that nest and that bird and the dad hang out on the other perch while momma is sitting on the baby."
The camera being installed in the northern post is a fixed, or "bullet," model that will remain focused on the nest itself. The other two oscillate, which will give an operator the ability to rotate them from a remote location.
"So if the birds aren't in those particular nests, we can certainly flip the camera around to view events and see all the fun that's going on at the park," Greenwood said.
Several educational signs will also be posted in the park to give visitors information about the Ospreys and how to access the cameras online.