birbs

M1 deploy — Tapo motion timelapse

Sat, 30 May 2026 10:30:00 -0700

Unlisted preview. Two sped-up compilations of every tapo_motion_* clip the Tapo C110 captured since M1 of the-birbs-return — the round-2 sunroom House Finch monitor — went live on jarvis at 19:01 PT, 2026-05-29.

Yesterday since deploy — 2026-05-29 19:01–19:04 PT (10× speed)

Only the first three minutes after the launchd jobs loaded — the day-zero baseline. Three clips, 13-second compilation.

The Story So Far

Tue, 26 May 2026 23:20:03 +0000

What does a House Finch nesting cycle actually look like, in data? This page covers the full window the cameras ran for — Day 1 (2026-04-25) → Day 31 (2026-05-25), from the female settling onto a complete clutch to the cup sitting empty through a full daylight cycle. The first ~12 days are late incubation: female sitting tight on a complete clutch, male making courtship-feeding visits with food. Day 13 (2026-05-07) is hatch day. Days 14+ are the brooding → provisioning → fledge progression. Every chart below is regenerated from the same daily-metrics JSON the journal entries are built from.

Day 31 — Nest empty throughout daylight; brief overnight visits only

Mon, 25 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

From midnight through ~00:20, interval clips show the cup empty. At 00:33, a bird is in the cup (sunroom_interval), but the tapo interval three minutes later shows it already gone. Two more brief occupancies follow at 02:22 and 02:38 — bird visible on sunroom_interval both times, cup empty on the corresponding tapo intervals — suggesting very short visits rather than sustained brooding.

Fledge Day, from the Cup to the Carpet

Sun, 24 May 2026 18:30:00 -0700

Day 30 — Chicks seen outside cup on bookshelf; both parents feeding; nest empty by mid-afternoon

Sun, 24 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Through the overnight hours, tapo close-camera intervals show chicks filling the cup unbrooded across most checks. Adult brooding visits appear at roughly 00:40, 01:08–01:11, 01:34–01:42, 02:13–02:44, 03:15, and 03:46. From about 04:30, brooding becomes sustained on motion clips through ~05:54, with the adult head-tucked in the cup.

Day 29 — Chicks climbing onto shelf; five-count confirmed; both adults feeding

Sat, 23 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight, the adult broods in short, irregular stints rather than continuously. Interval clips through the night confirm a repeating on/off pattern — the adult settles in the cup for a few minutes, the chicks are exposed, then the adult returns. Chicks show open eyes and occasional gaping even in the 01:00–03:00 range. By 04:18, a clip shows multiple chicks already on the shelf outside the cup proper, huddled beside it.

Outgrowing the Cup: Five Fledglings on Day 28

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:45:00 -0700

Field Journal — House Finch Nest, 22 May 2026

The cup has not changed since hatch. Five birds have. The vessel that once held five pale eggs and one adult now contains five well-feathered fledglings, bodies overlapping, tails crossed, occupying every cubic inch of available space. The 21st described chicks “beginning to overflow.” On the 22nd the overflow is the resting state. The nest is the same nest; the brood is no longer the same brood.

Day 28 — Active feeding by both adults; full clutch of 5 visible simultaneously

Fri, 22 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Through the overnight hours the female alternated between brooding bouts and leaving the chicks unattended in the cup. During uncovered stretches, 3–4 chicks were visible and largely still. Several clips from 01:34 through 03:03 show a second adult perched to the left of the nest — tagged as feeding events — though no chick gapes were confirmed in those IR frames, and it’s unclear whether food was transferred.

Five Nestlings Fill the Cup and Begin to Overflow

Thu, 21 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

These three days form a single continuous arc — not three separate ledger entries but one long sentence of growth that only the gaps between pages obscure. When I sit with the full sequence from Tuesday through Thursday, the story is unmistakable: a brood of five House Finch nestlings pressing against the walls of a cup that built itself around eggs and can no longer contain what those eggs became.

Day 27 — Active feeding throughout; chicks beginning to overflow cup onto shelf

Thu, 21 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight the female alternated frequently between sitting on the cup and being absent — chicks visible alone in IR through most of the midnight hours. At 00:29, two adults were present at the nest simultaneously, a brief anomaly. A second two-adult visit was recorded again near 22:59 and 23:20.

Day 26 — Both adults feeding regularly; 5 chicks confirmed; debris accumulating

Wed, 20 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight from midnight, the female was on the nest in brooding bouts interrupted by brief gaps — typically a minute or two — during which 3–4 chicks were visible huddled in the cup. The pattern recurred through the pre-dawn hours; the short gaps suggest frequent position shifts rather than sustained off-nest absences.

Day 25 — Both adults feeding regularly; 5 chicks visible in single clip

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight, the female brooded steadily in infrared. Brief absences occurred at 00:21, 00:35–00:41, and several other short gaps through ~02:30; chicks are visible huddling in the cup during each. She returns within a minute or two in each case. At 01:53, she shifts position and chicks are briefly visible beneath her.

Relay Feeding and Overnight Brooding: Three Days in the Cup

Mon, 18 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

The three days from Saturday through Monday resolve into a single legible rhythm: female on the cup from roughly 20:30 each night until first light, dawn handoff to both adults, a relay through the afternoon, a dusk cluster, and repeat. Within that constancy, small details accumulate — an eye opening, a count ticking upward, a male perching closer than usual to the rim.

Day 24 — Regular feeding by both adults; female on nest overnight

Mon, 18 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

From midnight through dawn the female brooded with only scattered short absences — gaps at 01:18, 01:33, 02:08, 02:48, 03:24, and around 05:32–05:43, each lasting a minute or two. During these breaks multiple chicks were visible in the cup; at 02:08 at least 3 were counted. At 05:13, several chicks were visible beneath the adult in IR.

Day 23 — Sustained feeding by both adults; possible unhatched eggs still present

Sun, 17 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Female on the nest continuously from midnight through approximately 05:50, with brief absences recurring throughout the night — chicks visible in the exposed cup during most gaps. At 05:56 she departs and five chicks are clearly visible in color for the first time today, several gaping.

Day 22 — High feeding rate by both parents; 6 chicks counted in one evening clip

Sat, 16 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight, the female alternated rapidly between sitting on the cup and brief absences, with chicks visible in uncovered clips throughout. The cycling — a brooding clip followed within a minute or two by an empty-cup clip with chicks — persisted from midnight through roughly 05:30, consistent with the female shifting position and the motion trigger also firing on chick movement. Gaping chicks were recorded as early as 00:22 and again at 03:22.

Five Chicks, Two Pale Ovals, Three Days of Provisioning

Fri, 15 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

May 13–15, 2026 · Wednesday through Friday

Three days ago the nest cup still held secrets. By May 15 it holds five small bodies that shift and gape and press against each other without waiting for an adult to stand above them. What the camera reveals across these seventy-two hours is not simply a series of feedings but a coherent arc — a brood consolidating itself while the adults fall into the deepening rhythm of provisioning.

Day 21 — Day N — Fragmented overnight brooding; sustained male provisioning

Fri, 15 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Through midnight to roughly 05:00, the female is repeatedly on and off the nest. Brooding clips appear at 00:32, 00:52–00:54, 00:57, 00:59, 01:12, 01:19, 01:25–01:35, 01:40, and at scattered intervals thereafter, but unbrooded gaps are frequent throughout the entire overnight window. Chicks are visible in infrared during most of these gaps; at 00:08 and 00:30 a chick is seen gaping with no adult present. At 05:14, five chicks are visible simultaneously in the cup.

Day 20 — High feeding-visit rate; possible unhatched egg(s) visible at dusk

Thu, 14 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight through approximately 05:45, the female brooded without significant gaps. Chick shapes — pale, rounded forms — were visible in infrared alongside her through most of the night.

Starting around 05:46, the female began leaving the cup for stretches long enough to expose the chicks on camera. By 06:02 a relief clip shows her departing with four chicks clearly visible in the uncovered cup. At 06:06, multiple chicks are visible with open gapes. The male made the first confirmed feeding visit at 06:26–06:27, with four chicks present and at least one gaping; a second male visit followed at 06:53 with three chicks gaping.

Asynchrony and Provisioning: Three Days Inside the Finch Nest

Wed, 13 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Three days bracket a transition I have been waiting weeks to see resolve. On May 11 the cup still held both naked chicks and unhatched eggs; by the evening of May 13, the family had settled into the steady, mechanical cadence of a brooding-and-feeding operation with as many as five gaping mouths.

Day 19 — Frequent male feeding visits; 5 chicks visible; possible unhatched eggs noted

Wed, 13 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Female on the nest from midnight. Chicks visible in multiple overnight IR clips—small pale shapes beside her in the cup. No recorded absences during the night.

At 05:56, a brief gap shows the chicks in the cup without an adult, at least one gaping. At 06:19, the first male feeding visit of the day: he enters the cup with multiple chicks gaping. Female returns by 06:29; she departs around 06:34, leaving 4 chicks visible (tagged relief). Male is back at 06:58 and again at 07:35 when both adults are briefly at the cup simultaneously.

From Pale Eggs to Gaping Chicks: Three Days at the Nest

Tue, 12 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

The three days folded into a single, cohesive story the moment I spread the footage logs across the table. What struck me first was not any single event but a structural tension: the nest on Sunday afternoon still held eggs—pale, high-NIR-albedo ovals visible in the sunroom clip at 13:17—and yet a pinkish chick was already present in the cup by 14:32 the same day. Hatching was not a clean threshold crossed at one moment. It was a slow tide.

Day 18 — Chicks visible in daylight; up to 4 confirmed; 3 unhatched eggs still in cup at 10:51

Tue, 12 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The female broods without interruption overnight. Chicks appear in IR clips from 02:51 onward—pale rounded shapes at the cup edge when she shifts—and recur in a dozen or more clips through the pre-dawn hours.

By 05:38, a chick is briefly visible as the female moves. At 05:41, an interval clip shows the cup empty of adults with several naked, pinkish chicks clearly present. Daytime color imaging from around 06:00 improves resolution: at 06:24, multiple small grey-downy chicks are visible with yellow/orange beaks. Three chicks are confirmed in a single view at 06:40 when the female departs the cup.

Day 17 — Up to 4 chicks; unhatched eggs still in cup at ~16:00; male feeds throughout

Mon, 11 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The Tapo camera’s overnight interval frames are almost entirely unreadable — fully dark from 00:00 through at least 05:19. A bird is confirmed on the nest in IR at 01:27; a brief empty-nest clip at 05:35 suggests a short absence before the female returns by 05:50.

Day 16 — Regular male feeding visits throughout; 4 chicks confirmed in single frame

Sun, 10 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Female on the nest at 02:00, continuous overnight. At 06:17 she departs; the cup is empty at 07:08. At 07:32 she is on the shelf beside the nest, facing the cup. A male enters the cup briefly at 07:48 with no chicks visible in that clip. She is back brooding by 08:20.

Three Days of Hatch: One Egg Lingers in the Cup

Sat, 09 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

The middle days of May produced the most consequential footage this nest camera has yet recorded — not a single decisive moment but a protracted negotiation between the old state of the nest and the new one. Eggs and chicks occupied the same cup simultaneously for three full days, and the camera documented the overlap with a thoroughness that no spot-check visit could have matched.

Day 15 — Regular male feeding visits; 4 chicks confirmed; apparent unhatched egg

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Female on nest continuously through the overnight period. First departure of the day at 05:58 briefly reveals 2 chicks in the cup; she is back within a minute. A second short absence around 06:16–06:19: the 06:18 departure clip logs 5 pale oval shapes as eggs, which is difficult to reconcile with the chicks confirmed 20 minutes earlier — most likely explanation is that unhatched eggs and already-hatched chicks are both present in the cup simultaneously. Cameras shift from IR to color around sunrise; the 06:25 clip is the first color footage, showing 3 chicks alongside an adult.

Four Chicks, Maybe Five

Fri, 08 May 2026 20:30:00 -0700

Day one for the chicks. The female sat through the night without leaving the cup, the male picked up his new provisioning rhythm at first light, and the count came into focus through the day. The cleanest end-of-day cup-view at 16:51 — zoomed and contrast-enhanced from the Tapo close-up — shows at least four distinct pinkish chick-bodies piled together in the dried grass, possibly five. The Gemini classifier capped the count at three because it defaults to conservative when chicks are piled, but the pile is denser than that — the in-person look I took at 17:50 lined up with four-or-five.

Day 14 — Day N — First full day with chicks; multiple feedings, one egg still in the cup

Fri, 08 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The female sits the nest continuously through the overnight hours, visible in monochrome IR on both Tapo and sunroom cameras from 00:13 onward. Position shifts are minor and the cup contents stay occluded.

First daylight activity comes at 06:13, when she shifts and an egg is briefly visible. A short relief at 06:19 shows eggs in the cup before she returns. Between 06:27 and 06:30, a male with red plumage on head and chest appears at the rim and on the adjacent shelf — courtship feeding visits — while she remains in the cup. By 07:16, two pale eggs are visible during a brief absence; at 07:27 and 07:29, a single egg is visible. At 07:48–07:52, two chicks are clearly visible in the cup, the first unambiguous chick views of the day.

Hatch Day, Days Early

Thu, 07 May 2026 20:30:00 -0700

The hatch was supposed to be next week. Going by a 13–14 day House Finch incubation and a clutch finished around April 25–26, the window I was watching for was May 11 through May 14. Instead, yesterday morning, I checked the cameras and found chicks. Four to seven days early. The hatch itself happened overnight, under the female, and no camera saw it. By the time she lifted off the cup for her first morning shift just after seven, two of the five eggs were already chicks. The work was done in the dark.

Day 13 — Day N — Hatch confirmed; chicks visible from dawn

Thu, 07 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The overnight clips begin as steady incubation, with the female settled low in the cup through the early morning. At 06:13, the first clear hatch evidence appears: a Tapo motion clip shows the female in the cup, a pale egg-like oval, and multiple small pinkish shapes consistent with newly hatched chicks in the final frame. A 06:14 interval clip also shows chick-like shapes partly visible beneath her.

From Five Pale Eggs to First Chicks: Three Days' Watch

Wed, 06 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Monday the fourth arrives with the clutch already deep into incubation—Day 8 by my reckoning—and the female has not wavered. She rode out the night tucked tight in the cup, shifting only slightly between IR frames, and by 06:17 we had our cleanest daytime confirmation yet: the nest stood briefly empty and five eggs lay exposed in the sunroom light. Their NIR-albedo reads uniformly high across the cup, pale speckled surfaces reflecting cleanly against the woven fiber walls.

Day 12 — Day N — Steady incubation; courtship feeding visits cluster mid-morning and late afternoon

Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Through the overnight hours and into early morning, the female stays on the nest cup almost continuously, visible in IR across both Tapo and sunroom interval cameras. A brief gap appears at 03:52 — an empty cup with eggs visible — before she settles back in. Through the 04:00 and 05:00 hours she barely shifts.

Day 11 — A day of steady incubation and attentive male visits.

Tue, 05 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

ties# Day N — Continuous overnight incubation; brief nest absence around dawn

2026-05-05 · Tuesday

Through the overnight hours, the female is on the nest continuously. From 00:04 onward, every Tapo and sunroom IR clip shows her tucked in the cup, head down, shifting position only slightly between frames. The pattern holds without a break through 04:47 — roughly five hours of uninterrupted incubation captured across both close cameras.

Day 10 — Steady incubation; frequent male nest visits; brief human disturbance

Mon, 04 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Continuous overnight incubation through 06:00. At 06:17, the cup was briefly empty with all five eggs visible before the female returned and settled. The morning continued with steady incubation broken by short reliefs.

The male visited the nest repeatedly throughout the day. He first appeared at 06:59, then again at 07:30, with similar visits at 08:54, 11:34, 12:38, 13:13, 15:57, and 17:15. Most clips show him at or near the cup — these are courtship feeding (food delivery to the incubating female) or nest checks during the female’s brief recesses. House Finch males do not incubate; despite some clips showing the male appearing to sit in the cup, this is brief contact (food transfer, recess overlap), not relief duty.

The Male Keeps Returning to the Cup, Day After Day

Sun, 03 May 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Three days into close observation of the House Finch nest in the sunroom, the clearest thread running through the record is not the female’s steady incubation — that is expected — but the male’s repeated, sometimes extended presence in the nest cup itself. This is the anomaly worth tracking.

Day 9 — Frequent male visits, two unusual events at midday

Sun, 03 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The female is on the nest at 02:00 and the next clip isn’t until 08:37, when a red male perches on the adjacent book while she sits. Similar visits at 09:29, 10:26, 10:27, 11:42, and 11:43 — the male approaches, lingers on the shelf below or briefly on the nest rim, then leaves while she stays put. Pattern continues through the early afternoon.

Day 8 — Day N — Steady incubation with one courtship feeding and a brief human visit

Sat, 02 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

By 10:55 the female is on the nest, deep in the cup. A short midday gap follows — at 11:52 the cup is briefly empty with one egg visible — before she returns by 11:54, partly hidden behind the spine of Shoe Dog. She is back settled at 12:34, with unusually pronounced red on the head and chest for a female.

Day 7 — Day N — Frequent male visits during female's morning recesses

Fri, 01 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Overnight incubation was steady but interrupted. Between 00:00 and 06:00, the female cycled on and off in roughly 15–45 minute increments, with empty stretches at 00:45–01:00, 02:00–02:30, 03:45–04:15, and 04:45. Five eggs visible during each gap.

The cup was empty across most of 06:00–07:00. At 07:09, a male arrived at the cup briefly, followed by the female — a courtship-feeding visit followed by the female resuming incubation (House Finch males do not incubate; visits to the nest are food deliveries or nest checks). He returned at 07:59 and again was at the nest through the 08:00 interval. The female took over by 08:15 and incubated through 08:30.

Female Holds the Cup While the Male Keeps Returning

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 18:00:00 -0700

April 28–30, 2026 · Bookshelf nest, House Finch pair

The Pattern Before the Detail

Three days of data, collected across a camera transition, two observers (one biological, one electronic), and a male bird whose behavior invites scrutiny. The female is the constant: she is on the cup at dawn on all three mornings, off for brief foraging windows, back before the light fails. The male is the variable — increasingly present, increasingly close to the eggs, and on at least one afternoon raising questions about what “visits” actually mean for this pair.

Day 6 — A brief morning visit before an empty nest.

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The day’s activity begins with the male visiting the incubating female at the nest. A short while later, the female takes a break, leaving the single egg unattended in the nest cup.

Scene-by-scene

08:09 (Morning visit) — The female is incubating when the male arrives. He interacts with her on the nest before moving to perch on the nearby bookshelf.
08:53 (Incubation break) — The nest is empty, revealing the single pale-blue speckled egg in the cup.

Notes

The nest was observed empty for a period, with the egg left unattended.

Pipeline: No infrastructure changes this day.

Day 5 — Day N — Female incubation steady; male nest visits at midday

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0700

By 06:11 the female is on the cup. She lifts off twice in the next half hour — at 06:16 and 06:36 the nest sits empty with two eggs visible from the camera angle — and returns at 06:38 to settle back in. From 06:59 through 09:35 she is on the eggs steadily across three motion clips.

Day 4 — Frequent short reliefs; camera work mid-afternoon clears the nest

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The female is on the eggs at 06:00 and 06:03, gone by 06:39. The cup sits empty through the early morning until 08:23, when she arrives, settles briefly, and departs.

The morning runs as a series of short on-and-off shifts: back at 09:41, off by 09:47, on again at 10:32, off at 11:31, returning at 11:32, off until 12:44 when she returns to incubate. A male appears on the bookshelf near the nest at 10:33.

Six Eggs in the Cup: Three Days on the Bookshelf Nest

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Some nests announce themselves. This one hid inside a domestic interior, its dried-grass cup wedged between a dark spine — a copy of Shoe Dog standing as a windbreak — and the white wall of a sunroom. My first close look came Saturday afternoon, April 25, when I found the female off the eggs. A quick burst of iPhone frames from multiple angles recorded two, sometimes three, sometimes four pale blue-green eggs with dark speckles, depending on how much the rim overhang obscured the clutch. That variance is instructive: the cup has steep walls and any lateral shot will occlude the rearmost eggs. The honest figure for Saturday afternoon is at minimum two eggs confirmed, with camera geometry preventing an unambiguous total.

Day 3 — Frequent short reliefs; male visits the nest area at 10:17

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Pre-dawn coverage starts with the female on the nest at 06:16 and 06:23, shifting briefly to expose the eggs. She’s off by 06:28, and the empty cup with all five eggs is visible across both cameras. She returns briefly at 06:29 and settles back to incubate at 06:31 before leaving again.

Day 2 — Sparse incubation, brief midday human disturbance

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Five eggs visible in the cup throughout the day. Coverage is sparse — most clips show the nest empty.

Early morning, the cup is unattended at 06:22 and 06:23. At 06:41 a male perches on the books above the nest, then leaves. The female appears briefly at 06:42 and is sitting on the eggs by 06:52. By 07:38 she’s gone again. She returns to settle in the final frame at 08:46.

Day 1 — Sparse iPhone coverage; female on nest by evening

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0700

Coverage today is mostly hand-held iPhone shots, with one clip from the bookshelf camera at the end of the day.

A short burst of iPhone photos around 16:06 shows the nest empty. Egg counts in these frames vary — three eggs visible at 16:06:01, two at 16:06:20, 16:06:22, and 16:06:23 — likely an artifact of angle and the dried-grass cup partially hiding the clutch rather than a real change. A clearer iPhone shot at 17:24 shows all five pale-blue speckled eggs in the cup, with the nest unattended.