Fund/Activity Drive
Update
As some of us were discussing our needs, we realized that we may not have done as good a job as we might at letting those who enjoy the forum know what we need to make this an active, growing hub for information about eagles and other wildlife.
We definitely need your financial support. The response to this drive has been wonderful, and will help with the bills that pile up - and it would be wonderful if we could double our monthly donations. We need to pay every month for the server space where our website and this forum is located, for the internet service to connect some of the cams to the web, for the high-speed internet service to send the signals from the cams to YouTube so everyone can see them, and a few other similar expenses that I'm forgetting at the moment. We currently get about $250/month from our monthly donor program - and thank you so much to those of you who support us this way! And it would be great if another 20 or 30 people who enjoy posting on the forum or just reading about the eagles could join the program and make a monthly donation of $10 or $20 or whatever works. It's easy to do with CanadaHelps - just go to our Donations page (click here), click the Donate via CanadaHelps Now! link, click on Donate Monthly, enter an amount (they suggest $25, but that's just a suggestion - the amount you enter is the amount you'll give), leave a message if you'd like, and fill in your contact and payment information. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me ([email protected]) or gemini ([email protected]).
But financial support is not all we need. We're calling this a Fund/Activity Drive because we really need those of you who enjoy what we're doing here to get more involved. What we need most of all is more people to watch our cameras and post observations. If you look at the threads for our primary nests (Delta 2, Harrison Mills, Surrey Reserve and White Rock), you'll see that most of the posts on each thread are by the same 3 or 4 people. And they would love some help!
This is also a good time to add more zoomers. If you're interested, the first step is to pick one or two of our nests and start posting observations and learning a bit about the territory and the eagles by where the zoomers go to look for eagles. Once you're comfortable posting, let me or one of the zoomers at your chosen nest know you're interested in zooming, and we can go from there.
We don't expect people posting to know all about the eagles initially - I've been watching cams since 2006, and I'm having trouble telling the male and female apart at our new Surrey Reserve nest unless I can see the tiny mark on the male's tale or the tuft of feathers on the female's head - but I know as I watch them more, I'll learn more about how they move or where their favorite place to perch is - and it will be easier. It's perfectly fine to say "an adult came in at 9:03 am and moved some sticks" - and often one of the folks who have been watching longer can look back using the dvr feature on our cams and see which one it is - and we're all happy to share the clues we used to recognize the adult.
You don't need to watch constantly, or commit to watching at a certain time - just whenever you happen to be watching, post what you see. Or didn't see - a post like "I was watching the North cam from 10:30 to 11:00 and did not see any activity on the nest" is actually very helpful as we learn when the eagles are most likely to visit at this time of year.
If you have questions about posting observations, please feel free to contact me or any of the Topic Assistants who post on the thread you're interested in.
You can click here to go to our donations page - and remember that the amounts listed under various projects like Eagle Cam Repairs and Monthly Support are suggestions - you pick the amount you give. Thank you.
If you have questions, please contact me ([email protected]) or gemini ([email protected]).
Thank you again to all who have donated or are donating time or money - we could not do this without your donations and without your observations, screenshots, videos, and hours spent zooming.