The Indianapolis Star is at it again. The newspaper that launched Gannett's first "moms'' site is drawing readers to its video camera-fed Falcon Blog. "On a building ledge more than 400 feet above street level in downtown Indianapolis," the blog says, "two peregrine falcons are taking turns incubating their eggs. Web cameras provide an inside glimpse of the falcons as they incubate their eggs and later raise their chicks.''The chicks started hatching this morning, leading to an excited post from blogger Laura James-Reim: "Number 2 is here at about 8:40 am. It's like a falcon factory up there on the 31st floor of Market Tower!"
Two video cameras are trained on the falcons: one on a building ledge, another on the nest itself. Viewers see still images from the cameras, updated as often as every 30 seconds. The Star launched the falcon cameras in 2004. Falcon Blog is now part of the paper's IndyPaws site; I wouldn't be surprised to see more Gannett papers launch pet sites of their own -- a possibility disclosed in the company's 2007 Annual Report.Indy staffers: What's your traffic on Falcon Blog? Please leave a note, in the comments section, below. Use this link to e-mail feedback, tips, snarky letters, etc. See Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
[Image: this morning's Star, Newseum]
This is nothing new or innovative. Kodak has been doing this since 1998.
ReplyDeletehttp://rfalconcam.com/rfc-main/mainView.php
That said, since Indy's doing it I fully expect that Gannett will be forcing all properties to train a webcam on local wildlife. Palmettobugcam.com, anyone?
A quick Whois search shows Gannett already owns nashvillepaws.com, arizonapaws.com, and others. Yeah, the (insert city here)paws.com sites are coming soon.
ReplyDeleteThis is the future of Gannett news reporting. Watchdogging at its finest.
Hi Jim:
ReplyDeleteIndyStar.com has offered Falcon Cam since 2004. This spring it moved over to the Indy Paws site.
The two cameras offer a 30-second refresh. Each refresh counts as a click.
On Tuesday, the cameras and blog had 630,000 views and about 8,900 visitors. With the eggs starting to hatch today, those numbers are jumping.
Our blogger is a volunteer who has watched over the peregrine falcons for years and is devoted to keeping her blog updated and to answer visitors' questions.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources is in charge of the peregrine falcon reintroduction program and built the nest box. Wildlife biologists will tag and do a blood draw on the young falcons in a couple weeks.
It was simply a staff idea to trying putting the cams in the nest box and see if an audience would follow.
Multimedia producer Matt Dial figured out the technical end for us. Matt and I have each had to go out on the ledge of a 35-story building to tend to the cameras. A falcon dive-bombing into your helmeted head will give your journalism career a new focus.
Thanks for bringing attention to Falcon Cam.
Tom Leyden
Content Editor
IndyStar.com
Aww. And all Burlington gets is this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/legacy/churchstreetcam.shtml
A similar webcam exists in New York City, where the DEP began tracking Falcons (Jack & Diane) in 1999. The webcam launched in 2004.
ReplyDeleteThe site also contains an archive of video footage and a news archive.
Here's a link to the site:
http://www.55water.com/falcons/