£15,000 plea to keep cameras rolling at rare osprey reserve
A nature reserve has launched a £15,000 appeal to allow it to live stream coverage of rare birds of prey during 2016.
The Dyfi Osprey Project at the Cors Dyfi Reserve near Machynlleth attracts thousands of viewers to webcam footage of its nest each year.
Uninterrupted live camera action will start streaming from next week through to September using five high definition cameras with professional grade microphones.
But to keep the cameras running the reserve is asking for funding from the public.
Emyr Evans, project manager, said: "This week we've had the 10 metre tower scaffolding at the nest. We re-calibrated everything and cleaned, serviced and tested all the cameras before upgrading everything with the newest firmware versions.
"Testing last week went so well, we should have the live streaming up long before the scheduled March 21 deadline we were working towards.
"To keep all the cameras going plus all the bandwidth we need to beam terabytes of data every week. Tthe whole job-lot comes to around £10,000 in 2016, the same as the last two years. We get no grant funding, we need to raise this ourselves.
"We need £15,000 for the new work we are doing. We have been working on a wheelchair lift since Christmas for the 360 Observatory. Now that the final cost is known – around £29,000, with grant funding and kind donations – we're up to around £24,000.
"We didn't want to make a large appeal over Christmas as we didn't know the final costings, so the intention was to lump it with the live streaming 2016 appeal, hence the added £5,000 extra added to the appeal this year."
At the end of each day any interesting highlights of the day's video footage will be compiled into a video and posted on the project's website and Facebook page.
The reserve's resident breeding pair Monty and Glesni are expected to return to the rest during the next six weeks.
Donations can be given at the reserve when it opens later this month, via the website at www.dyfiospreyproject.com/stream or by cheque made payable to 'Dyfi Osprey Project' to Emyr Evans, Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, 42 Broad Street, Welshpool, SY21 8SR.
