Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Kodak "Going to the Birds"

This is topic Kodak "Going to the Birds" in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-26-2002, 01:46 PM:

For the last five years, a Peregrine Falcon family has nested and raised their young chicks on the top of the 19-story Kodak Office tower in Rochester. A few years ago, Kodak installed digital "Birdcams" to transmit this "slice of life" over the INTERNET. Each spring, the "Birdcam" becomes one of the most popular parts of the Kodak website:

http://birdcam.kodak.com/

Warning: The falcons have been known to eat their prey on camera!

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 03-26-2002, 01:53 PM:

Hey John,

A favorite saying among Ford Falcon people---"Just Falcon Around!"

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-26-2002, 02:00 PM:

My first automobile was a '67 Ford Falcon. Nice dependable car that I could easily maintain myself.

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 03-26-2002, 04:40 PM:

What a cool site. Where is the Kodak building anyway? Is it in New York?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-26-2002, 05:28 PM:

Very cool! Nice looking building, too...

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 03-26-2002, 06:25 PM:

The wonderful company of Kodak is located in Rochester or as I lovingly call that great town, ahem "Rockchester". So many better live bands travel there than Syracuse, and the best "worst" restaurant in the world - Nick Tahous. Worth the seventy mile drive any time

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 03-26-2002, 07:24 PM:

And also the home of a good pub "the old toad"

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-27-2002, 07:08 AM:

Kodak Office is the home of the corporate headquarters, and is located in the historic "Brown's Race" district near downtown Rochester. Just a short walk to the "High Falls" of the Genesee River.
http://www.vintageviews.org/vv-r/industry/cards/ind020.html
http://www.vintageviews.org/vv-r/industry/cards/ind021.html
http://www.mssgraphics.com/Roch.html
City of Rochester Tour
http://theoldtoad.com/
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/5981/Tahou.htm
http://www.geocities.com/garbageplates/

For Steve Guttag: Note that the falcons have a "Bird's Eye View" of the Rochester Red Wings baseball games at Frontier Field, which shares parking with Kodak Office:
http://www.redwingsbaseball.com/
http://www.redwingsbaseball.com/frontierfld/photogal2.html

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-27-2002, 09:41 AM:

This is quite cool!

Do you have less problems with pidgeons, now that the falcon's are on patrol?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-27-2002, 10:06 AM:

As I noted, these falcons have been known to eat their prey in front of the camera, pigeons included!
http://birdcam.kodak.com/cgi-bin/asCgi.pl?node=18&app=birdcam&laf=playground&instance=12

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 03-27-2002, 10:31 AM:

There's also a Falcon Cam in Cleveland, Ohio.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-27-2002, 10:42 AM:

Jeffry: Must be a bit warmer in Cleveland --- your birds are incubating the eggs already.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 03-27-2002, 02:36 PM:

The City on the Lake doesn't have ALL of the falcons in Ohio. We have some too. And, there is a mysterious newcomer.
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/resources/falcon/columbus/falcons.html

There is a list of some of other Falcon sites here:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/birdcam2000/resources/reference.shtml

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-27-2002, 03:11 PM:

Mark:

Thanks for the many links posted on the Kodak website! Watching these beautiful and noble birds helps us remember that we must share the earth and treasure these natural gifts. Dare I say all these pictures help us "Share Moments. Share Life".

Other links for shared moments:
Kodak Photo Quilt

http://photoquilt.kodak.com/aol
http://pictureoftheday.kodak.com/cgi-bin/asCgi.pl?app=potd

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 05-04-2004, 01:22 PM:

It has been 768 days since the last post.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-04-2004, 01:22 PM:

The Kodak "BirdCam" is about to capture several "blessed events" as the 2004 peregrine falcon chicks are nearly ready to hatch:

Kodak BirdCam

quote:
New for 2004, the Kodak Birdcam provides a fantastic opportunity for students & teachers. We are pleased to support the efforts of educators around the globe by providing a downloadable resource with information about the endangered Peregrine Falcon, and how they fit into our ecosystem. Visit For the Classroom to get started! Then, join other teachers and students on the discussion board, where Peregrine Falcon fans and experts will gladly answer your questions.

Mariah & Kaver’s five eggs should start hatching in early May. That’s when the fun really begins!

Kodak BirdCam 4 Views

Downtown Rochester - The Falcons' Home

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-05-2004, 11:33 PM:

John, I thought it was at Ford Motor Comapny where they had a dreadful accident. One of those Falcons got loose from the assembly line and crapped all over the place. [Big Grin]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-06-2004, 10:41 AM:

At least I don't have the job of climbing up 19 stories to the top of the Kodak Office Tower building to clean the lenses on those BirdCams! [Big Grin]

I remember some days in the past when the cameras caught the birds eating their prey. [puke]

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=38/492/2017/2035/2044&pq-locale=en_US

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-12-2004, 11:06 AM:

For those who are interested:

John's birds hatched at least one baby falcon today!

I've been watching to get a good look at the baby bird but, well, it's hard to get a falcon to stay in one position long enough. [Wink]

You can see fragments of at least one egg shell. There is at least one new baby falcon. Maybe two! [Smile]

(Okay, they're not really JOHN's birds but they live in the building where John works. It's just more fun to say it that way. [Smile]

)

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-12-2004, 05:42 PM:

I see peregrine falcons around these parts typically in the spring or fall. Way too hot for them in the summer time.

Another cool predatory bird is the Harris Hawk. There's lots of them in the desert southwest and they can be found in Texas and Olkahoma. What makes the Harris Hawk cool? Since it is the only predatory bird species which hunts in packs, it has the most successful kill ratio of any predatory bird species. On average, Harris Hawks hunt in teams of three to five birds. They run a type of harrasment relay to tire prey, encircle them and go in for the kill. Their success rate is 50%, quite a bit better than the averages for all other birds of prey.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-12-2004, 06:05 PM:

Hey! It's feeding time at the falcon's nest!

It looks like 3 of the 4 eggs hatched today! The proud mother and father falcons are giving the babies a meal. Although there is no real gore in the picture, you can see bits of the rent-asunder carcass of whatever critter met its fate as the falcons' first meal.

This is cool! [Cool]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-13-2004, 02:27 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
(Okay, they're not really JOHN's birds but they live in the building where John works. It's just more fun to say it that way.

I don't work at the Kodak Office tower (KO Building 7) where the falcons are nesting, which is a 19 story building at 343 State Street near downtown Rochester. It's right next to Frontier Field, Rochester's AAA league baseball stadium, and home of the "Red Wings", which can be seen on one of the BirdCams. It's also close to the "High Falls" of the Genesee River.

I work in Building 69, which is part of the Kodak Research Laboratories, located about 4 miles north of the Kodak office tower and the falcons' nesting grounds.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-13-2004, 04:46 PM:

The birds live in a good part of town, dont' they?

Just think. They live in a penthouse apartment with a southern view. It's just a stone's throw from the baseball park. A few minutes' from the downtown entertainment district and a hop, skip and a jump from the brewery.

All that, and they don't pay rent!

What a country! [Wink]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-13-2004, 10:28 PM:

I think they like it because there are lots of pigeons around too, and the Genesee River gorge creates some nice updrafts to allow loitering aloft looking for prey.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-14-2004, 10:52 AM:

I've gotten kinda' hooked on watching birdcams so I started looking around the 'net for others. Let me tell ya'! I think Kodak's falcon cam is the best one.

Only one or two of them have more than one camrea. Most of them are out of focus or have dirty lenses. From a human-eye perspective, Kodak has the nicest nest box. (Though I don't know how much a falcon cares for looks. [Wink]

) A lot of them have grainy (overcompressed) pictures or the camrea is zoomed in too far or not zoomed in enough. One or two of them are off-line, even.

So, Kodak has one cam that's off-line but I imagine it'll get fixed sometime around "Banding day". No? Wouldn't want to disturb the birds too much just to fix a silly camera, would we?

Really good work, there! Keep it up! I'm glued to my screen! A few of my students are getting hooked too! They come to my office just to check the birdcams!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-14-2004, 11:56 AM:

Randy:

Thank you. [thumbsup]

The BirdCam always generates excitement around here, especially when the eggs hatch. Those chicks will grow fast, and be flying soon --- all caught on camera. [Cool]

My office is in the middle of our building, without any windows. So I sometimes check the BirdCam to see what the weather outside is like.

Today marks the start of the Rochester Lilac Festival:

http://www.lilacfestival.com/

quote:
A colorful parade, Montana Mills Lilac 10K, two arts and crafts shows, numerous concerts, and a vast array of other activities fill nearly every corner of Highland Park and its environs during the Lilac Festival. As always, this family-oriented festival emphasizes community involvement, bringing together the corporate community with several not-for-profit organizations and the public sector in a cooperative effort for the benefit of area residents and visitors. Below are brief descriptions of some of the festival's largest attractions and events.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 05-17-2004, 02:02 AM:

The Love Bug Festival has just begun in the coastal states of the southeastern USA.

Each year, these harmless dipterans (flies) emerge to form a spectacular display. Although they are flies, they are not carriers of disease, they have less of the jittery, hard, unattractive insectoid appearance expected, & are instead quiet, docile, slow-moving creatures of smooth, velvety black with striking red body sections.

Not only beautiful as specimens alone, the love bugs are beloved especially for their decorative interaction with automobiles. Millions per mile of the charming mating insects populate stretches of roadways, landing on windshields & exploding before the driver in dazzling Pollock-esque layered displays of color & juxtaposition, ever-changing, each different, arresting, inescapable.

Art changes with perspective; that of the love bugs often is pontillistic from another view:

Unlike many abstract works, which can seem cold & mechanical, those of the love bugs are always unquestionably organic in appearance. Prolific in their creativity, they can work so hard as to require stopping after as little as 45 minutes at a gas station where it will be found that the water in the squeegee bin has already been depleted by previous visitations of patrons of the love bugs' art seeking to provide them with a canvas afresh.

Art should often raise interesting questions, & this is easily the case with the love bugs. It is always engrossing to listen to the discussions which are brought about by the many overheard queries of "Mommy, why does this bug have two heads?"

Info about art in nature

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-17-2004, 10:53 AM:

One of the coolest pieces of "Windshield Art" that I ever made was when I was headed east on I-40, somewhere between Asheville, NC and Hickory.

It was just after nightfall (Naut. Twilight) and I drove through a swarm of fireflies at 70 M.P.H. Over a span of about 1/2 minute, the whole front end of my car lit up with 12" long streaks of glowing firefly guts! It was so thick I could hardly see to drive. I had to pull over and clean the windshield before I ran off the road. I just stood there and watched as the glowing streaks slowly faded into the night.

It was very cool! But let me give you some advice:

If you drive through a swarm of fireflies at night, **DO NOT** turn on your windshield wipers while you're driving!

[Big Grin]