LiveCam of African watering hole
November 25, 2006 1:11 PM   Subscribe

What's your favorite watering hole? Link to a real watering hole. In Africa. Live. With video and sound. And real animals. Best viewing times are dusk and dawn, Africa time (It's +8 hours from CST). Learn more about the feed here; click on "Nkorho Stream" in the upper left corner. Second link mentioned previously in a MeFi comment here. First link via; second link via.
posted by Doohickie (38 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
Cool - I'll check it out in 7 hrs.
posted by forallmankind at 1:18 PM on November 25, 2006


Doesn't seem to work on Firefox on the Mac.
posted by MythMaker at 1:21 PM on November 25, 2006


For those with macs, it's a Windows Media Player link...
posted by rom1 at 1:23 PM on November 25, 2006


Another waterhole with a live web cam is Pete's Pond, a National Geographic site, in Botswana. Like all NG sites it requires Real Player but does have several advantages over the Nkorho site. The cam operators spend more time with the camera and interact with the forum members. The operators include several wildlife researchers and provide a wealth of detailed information on what they are showing. They also have a second camera on a remotely operated raft which permits extreme closeups. The site was visited by the Vice President of Botswana, Lt General Ian Khama, this afternoon and shortly afterwards was taken off line for the night due to the approach of a severe storm. It should be back up shortly after dawn Central African Time.
You will have to wait through a 30 second Amex commercial to get to the goodies.
posted by featherbender at 1:38 PM on November 25, 2006


Right now it sounds like a bunch of crickets the size of my head. I guess I'll check back later this evening.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:50 PM on November 25, 2006


featherbender, do you have a link for that?
posted by Optamystic at 2:57 PM on November 25, 2006


this is great. i can't wait to watch it at work.
posted by unknowncommand at 3:03 PM on November 25, 2006


Optamystic, sorry try http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica/
NG just shut down their web cam in Churchill, Manitoba which featured the polar bears that wait for Hudson Bay to freeze over. http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/polarbearcam/index.html. They also have a web cam site covering a bilabong in Kakadu national park, Northern Territory of Australia, http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/kakaducam/. That camera has been plagued with techincal problems which they will hopefully be able to overcome. According to John Kondis, at NG, who is responsible for their web camera projects their intent is to have web cameras running year round. A future project is for a web camera covering the Great Barrier Reef.
posted by featherbender at 3:06 PM on November 25, 2006 [2 favorites]


It's +8 hours from CST

And CST is ... what exactly? 'Africa time' is pretty vague too, it's a fairly big continent.

The second link shows local time for the watering hole, once you get to the actual feed, so ignore the first link and view via the second.
posted by shelleycat at 3:25 PM on November 25, 2006


I'm on Firefox on a Mac and the first link works for me, I installed Flip4Mac.
posted by substrate at 3:38 PM on November 25, 2006 [1 favorite]


Neat! That place sounds louder than a big campground on a weekend.
posted by Salmonberry at 3:53 PM on November 25, 2006


CST is Central Standard Time (U.S.)
posted by Doohickie at 3:56 PM on November 25, 2006


I sure hope to see a real-life pissing elephant!
posted by sourwookie at 3:56 PM on November 25, 2006


Btw, for those who don't want to do the math, Africa is between UTC+0 and UTC+3. The part that's 8 hours ahead of CST is UTC+2. So sunrise should be about 0600 UTCish?
posted by pinespree at 4:05 PM on November 25, 2006


nice, we've got thunder!
posted by moonbird at 4:37 PM on November 25, 2006


wait, that's not thunder, it's some horrific beasie breathing into the mic! helps!
posted by moonbird at 4:48 PM on November 25, 2006


I just saw a shooting star!
posted by wigu at 5:03 PM on November 25, 2006


I hope someone fixes the focus soon. I feel like I haven't cleaned my contact lenses since, well, ever.
posted by bloomicy at 6:47 PM on November 25, 2006


Nice write-up Doohickie.
posted by dropkick at 6:55 PM on November 25, 2006


It's daylight now... and still out of focus :(

It was much clearer the last couple days. I hope they'll fix it soon.
posted by Doohickie at 7:01 PM on November 25, 2006


Looks pretty focused to me. I've been watching it for a while, listening to the ambient noise change from crickets to birds. I liked the crickets better. Not a whole lot else going on.
posted by bob sarabia at 7:31 PM on November 25, 2006


Damnit, it just went out of focus again.
posted by bob sarabia at 7:32 PM on November 25, 2006


I am seeing all sorts of animals and the birds are chirping like no tomorrow. This is really neat.
posted by LoriFLA at 8:38 PM on November 25, 2006


It's in focus now and someone is operating the camera (panning, zooming in and out).

There's not much activity, but the sound of the birds and the wind is kinda soothing.
posted by WhipSmart at 8:48 PM on November 25, 2006


Is that a millipede or a turd?
posted by HyperBlue at 8:53 PM on November 25, 2006


It was a millipede. Either that or there are some scary parasitic infections in the wildlife around there.

After a while, the webcam somehow crashed my browser.
posted by dilettante at 9:08 PM on November 25, 2006


I do believe that I just spotted a british-four-wheelus, or Land Rover as it were. Tally ho chaps!
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 10:18 PM on November 25, 2006


I can hear lots of birds and, I think, thunder. No animals at the moment tho'.

Oooh, wait. Two big birds are swimming now. Very cool!
posted by deborah at 10:46 PM on November 25, 2006


Wow. Seriously I had no idea there would be so much activity.
posted by altman at 1:47 AM on November 26, 2006


This is really cool but they should add a movement detector with an alarm system!
posted by rom1 at 2:21 AM on November 26, 2006


I just saw it pan over to some antelope that were wandering by. Does someone sit there all day and operate the camera?
posted by Tambo at 6:27 AM on November 26, 2006


Looks like it's operated remotely... probably folks at the lodge sit and scan for a while, and return it to the default view when they're done. I second the wish for an alarm system when something big walks by (charismatic megafauna, of course, although some of the smaller birds are pretty cool, too, but very hard to ID at this resolution)...
posted by bloomicy at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2006


Very cool. I am right now watching what looks like a pack of hyenas taking a drink.
posted by caddis at 8:30 PM on November 26, 2006


I was there for an hour or so from around 11pm Pacific US time and there was someone operating the camera the entire time. I saw a herd of zebras, a family of turtles, two deer-like animals and multiple birds, and I wasn't paying attention the entire time.

I think it's really cool.
posted by sophist at 12:15 AM on November 27, 2006


This is so great at 4 in the morning; it's like having a window that looks out into the awesomest backyard ever, and it's sunny and chirpy. Just the thing to stave off all-nighter depression.
posted by apathy0o0 at 1:24 AM on November 28, 2006


I've now seen some jackal/hyena type creatures, antelope, wildebeast (a whole herd!) and a big ol' elephant. Not to mention the several different types of birds that flit about.
posted by Doohickie at 9:39 PM on November 28, 2006


monkies!
posted by sophist at 10:56 PM on November 28, 2006


I love this.
When I first logged into it last night my coworkers and I got super excited when a herd of zebras showed up.
Outstanding!
posted by petersn1 at 12:09 PM on November 29, 2006


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