The glidercam that many people watch on the internet is based at the Latrobe University's Melbourne Wildlife Sanctuary right in the suburbs of Melbourne. Only the distant sound of traffic is a giveaway that it is not in a rural area.

Situated on 65 acres which over the past forty years has been recreated into a research and education centre for biodiversity and ecology, it is easy to imagine you are in the heart of wild glider country.

There are obvious chew marks on favourite gum and wattle trees where gliders have been searching for dinner.


Today was wet, cold, raining, hailing with a little winter sunshine all thrown in. Any nocturnal animal was well bedded down for the day so the trip was purely to investigate what is actually outside the nestbox that everyone watches daily on the internet.

There are so many nestboxes and all for different animals/birds. Being only 40 years in the making, there are limited older trees and hollows so these man made hollows (nestboxes) ensure homes for the wildlife in the sanctuary. Whilst I managed to locate a couple of nestboxes with cameras attached including the sugar glider nestbox, I am not going to post photos of these on the net simply to maintain security for those animals that live in these boxes.

Marz, that is so exciting! My email addy is in my profile. If you feel comfortable, could I possibly see the nest box pics. There is ZERO chance I will be making the tip to Australia in the foreseeable future... and I would not share them if you sais not to.

More photos!

That is so awesome. Thanks for sharing.

how lucky you are to see all that in person! thanks for sharing with us!

Awesome! Thats so neat!
Thank you for sharing!

For those that are interested, the current temperature here in Melbourne at 8am is 28 degrees farenheit. A chilly night just past.

Is there a link to the cam? I'm out of the loop, I have never heard of this!

http://www.gould.edu.au/wildlifecams/sugar_glider.asp

Its nighttime right now so they are all out having fun and finding dinner. I think they start to come back to the nest about 9:30 our time??? Not sure about that though.

Thank you, Robin!

It's daytime here now. Nearly 9am so if they are not in the nest now (can't check as I'm at work and the webpage doesn't work here), they wont be for the rest of the day. Actually it's been a few days since I've seen them in the nestbox so they must have found a warmer place to sleep.

I know all my animals were cuddled up together last night. I gave out some extra fleece blankets to the ringtail possums who do not sleep in big groups, but the gliders were all snuggled up toasty warm in their deep nestboxes.

The nest is empty

Wooohooo residents in the nest this morning....

No anymore... but I think it is night time over there now?

Id love to see, but doesnt look like the cam is working for me.. not sure why. I cant watch avi movies either. The missing plug in wont install on my pc..

oh well, Ill keep trying..:)

Is it just me or are others experiencing this; everytime I visit the site I get a black screen where the video is to be, and I can never see the gliders ...am I doing something wrong? I have everything installed correctly, because the site is coming up fine, but just not the actual video...

this sounds great! would love to visit Aus someday, since i was a kid i love koalas, roos and of course gliders!
i'm at work now and can't see the vid
hope i could see it at home
is it live feed?

It's because you're using Firefox, I think. I had the same problem, but it works fine in internet explorer.

OK, I was at work trying to view, and everything else came up but the video, but I am home now and I am able to watch!!
I love this!

That is soooo cool to be able to see wild gliders in Australia doing their thing.

I have been visiting the cam site for years not only to watch the sugar gliders but the other nest boxes.

Today... which is night time australian time... I clicked the Kookaburra Nest box expecting it to be empty again as always. And guess what??? A Kookaburra is home!!!!!! It is the first time I have ever seen one in the box. He or she is sleeping.

Love the Aus Glider Cams

Oh Karen, I am so sorry I missed your reply. I posted and then had to go to the vet.

The Kookaberra was in the center of the cam photo where you see the light filtering into the box. He/she was covered with the grass and it's head and bill were in full view as if watching the camera. The eyes were closed but I could see the black marikings around the eyes and it's large beak.

I will watch the cam on and off tomorrow... and just maybe I will see him/her again. If the bird is home again... I will post to this thread.

Kookaberra is in his/her box!!!!!

I went to see the kookaburra but all I saw was a white tipped sugar have a scratch and then leave the kookaburra nest box. there is a bat in the bat nestbox too.

Lots of action tonight!

Two bats moving round now but looks like they are waking up and will soon be out of there. Guess its dinner time. They are microbats.

I just checked the Kookaburra box and something was inside moving around under the grass for the longest time. after about ten minutes.... a sugar glider appeared out of the grassy material and left the box.

No Kookaburra.

HAHAHA that is funny

looking for soem eggs

Well, no eggs... but there seems to be a clear plastic cup in the Kookaburra nest box.

Litterbug!

Marz:
Do you know what type of cam they are using in the sanctuary? My hubby is shopping for a camera to set up in our 7.5 foot glider cage, so that I can see what's going on, even when I'm sleeping! Any help would be appreciated

All I know is that they are small infrared cameras. There is a little more information on this page, and they invite people to email them for more information

wildlife cam setup

Cheers

Oh and there are gliders in the nestbox this morning. It's still just dark here but it's getting lighter so they might be there for the day.

Thanks for the quick reply! I will check them out. We have a lot of info already, but I thought you may have some "inside" info!

Going to check it out again...

None of the four cameras are working. Sent an Email... but I have no idea how long it will take to fix the problem.

I was going to ring them today to find out what the issue is but I got tied down at work with meetings all day. Will ring them tomorrow.

That's good stuff...

Marz.... have you been able to contact them? Website still is not working.

Thanks.

I spoke to a receptionist there who was quite vague and believed it was a technical issue but didn't know what or how long before it was running again. I was going to ring back to speak to someone else but was flat out at work.

Weekend now and the offices are shut as it's at a University.

I received an email today from the Wildlife Center. The problem has been resolved and the cams are now working.

Well we might be below the snowline here in Melbourne but that didn't stop the snow from falling last night! It didn't settle though but today it is absolutely blowing a gale and freezing out there!

Whilst there are no gliders in the nestbox with the camera, there are there somewhere and I wonder what they thought about the falling snow during their wake time!

I don't worry about cold and my outside gliders. Their aviaries are very protected from the elements in the first instance, but when they all get into one nestbox, it's like a furnace in there!

It won't work for me, I don't have the correct istalation on this computer. Plus it's not mine, so I'm not allowedd to instal it either.

This is a really cool thing, but the camera (at least at this moment) is very blurry/out of focus. Anyone else have this problem?

I got the link from BalladonnasMom's post above.

It only works on I.E. I use Firefox but to see the glider cam, I have to use Internet Explorer. It's very blurry for me too.

You are so luck too see all of that. Thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks, Karen!
http://www.gould.edu.au/wildlifecams/sugar_glider.asp

A sugar glider just climbed into the nest right then carrying gum leaves. It's nest building. It's 5.30am here...still dark but it will starting to go light soon.

Guess the gliders are moving back in!

A white tipped female just brought in some more leaves and then proceeded to bury herself whilst she was nest building. She has gone again...probably to get more leaves.

This is a fantastic opportunity to see nestbuilding in the wild. The female is carrying leaves into the nestbox with her tail and making a very neat nest.

unfortunately,it won't let me on. there is a paragraph letting me know that some bees have moved in.how are you guys getting in?

i did get it to work on my acct.,thanx for steering me that way.i put it into my favorites.it did look like there was one sleeping.i will go back later to see if she has woke up.

It is definitely winter here and though it is lovely and sunny out there at the moment, our nights are freezing so possibly the gliders are in a big colony sleeping elsewhere. Mine are all sleeping together and they only do that in mid winter.


I did see a glider in there the other day though, so still keep an eye out for some strays.

There is something moving under the leaves in the nestbox today!

Hello Karen -
I posted the Glider Cam thread in March 2004 here on GC & Thread said it was Pockets little secret (lol) had to look into my files to locate Nikki & my emails.


I had been watching the cam & speaking with Nikki Saleba, then told her to expect a few new visitors, Nikki was the Communications Manager at the Gould League at that time in 2004.

The bees that take over are European honey bees & don't sting the gliders just irritate them, so they will move to another drey, nestbox or tree hollow as they do this often - also believed to help them shed parasite load.


Marz - Neat pic's - thanks for peek & notice your on Bob's blog we go way back!

Judie - It is aprox 16 hours ahead of Texas time in that Aussie area.


Sari Yappa - Not sure if hubby & you purchased your cam yet?

Myself & several friends watch Phoebe's Hummingbird Cam -
http://phoebeallens.com/

Below is camera info they use outside with pics of setup -
Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000
http://phoebeallens.com/setup.html

Occupants in the nestcam wide awake right now. It's just gone dusk here so they will be out looking for food shortly.

Hey Pockets!
YES My hubby bought me the cameras for my birthday! We have a four in the glider cage, made by "Qsee". I LOVE THEM!! At the moment it's mostly for my enjoyment, and recording the suggies all night so that I could either check back, or have a record if god-forbid something ever goes wrong.

I'd like to get into sharing my videos, and capturing pics, but it's a LOT of work getting it all off of the recorder

One of these days I'd like to invite people to see it live, but I'll need a lot of free time on my hands for that! I guess I'll stick with the wonderful people that let us see theirs for now

There is a white tipped glider in the nest box right now ... its 11.10pm here

While there is little activity in the Glider Box.... please check out the Bat Cam.

Seems there is a nest of Sugar Gliders nesting inside the Bat Box. They all are very "Fluffy" looking .

I was just looking at the sugar glider nest box and it looks like the bees are back, they are on the lens of the camera, it may be something else but I have saw them 2 nights in a row.

I emailed the "aus cam" people a while back and got a nice response. I had asked if there were plans to make the camera accessible to people with Macs.

"Thank you for your interest in our wildlife cams. This site was built about 2004 and the ActiveX technology used at the time is, unfortunately, not compatible with Macs so you won't have any luck there.

There are no plans to change this in the future. As a small charity, we have built our websites using one-off philanthropic grants and receive no ongoing funding from any source for maintaining, upgrading or providing these
websites and thus must do so out of our own very limited resources.

The Wildlife Cams were (particularly at the time they were built) a very sophisticated and thus expensive website to build, requiring additional funds from the Gould League on top of the grant provided and we are not able to extend or redevelop this site with our current resources.

But hopefully you can get access via a PC at some point - I think some sugar gliders may just have moved in and I'm sure I saw something wiggly at the bottom of the bat box.

I did see movement in the nesting materials last night for a few minutes, then when I came back to look again all I saw was the bees on the camera lens. I hope the bees don't run the suggies off again.

I have been checking it off and on today and me and my son saw a white tip in the box....yay!! He is almost 7 and constantly asks if we can check the sugar box....haha

Hmmmmm. Seems it has been awhile since anyone has posted to this thread.

Seems the website has not been working for almost two months. And now with the time of year being with babies in Aussie Land... it sure would be nice if the cams were working.

The website gives a message of.... Connection Timed Out. Have no idea what that means.

Marz... we sure could use your help here.

I miss watching them and yes it had been down for some time now. My son checks it everyday and he gets mad everyday that it does not connect which has been everyday for a while now. He is my little sugar glider helper, he loves the babies as much as mommy does........