Love what these guys do for wildlife – I think this is the same rig that is used for rhino poachers in Kenya, in any case certainly looks similar. Brilliant stuff. And penguins rule :-)

The Raspberry Pingu network perhaps..

I wonder if there is a backup system on the North Pole ready for some interesting snaps this coming Thursday ???

I’d love a penguin for Xmas,

but I think a turkey may taste better (less fishy).

Great work and congrats to those who worked on this application. I feel like that took some gonads, given that the Foundation couldn’t guarantee it was going to work for you.

But now look here: http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?product=LAN9512

In the eons since you launched, it seems your supplier has qualified that component down to -40 C! or maybe they saw this post and just took advantage. :) Either way, nicely done all.

As the astute reader may recall, I am a volunteer animal caretaker and visitor guide at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and my charges have included both South African blackfooted penguins and their very similar but slightly smaller cross-Atlantic East Coast South American cousins, Magellanic penguins. Having had close contact with them (they seem to think my ample-for-now beard is prospective nesting material!), penguins form an immediate opinion of you at first contact that then lasts a lifetime. Practicing binary math, they either decide you’re the best thing since sliced sardines, or you’re Beelzebub, Denizen of the Realm of the Prince of Darkness, Himself. When I let my guard down momentarily, my worst nemesis hopped onto my outstretched legs while I was wearing nylon coveralls and sitting on a low stool for a feeding. He hopped up further to wind up on my lap and when I realized he was after my plumage, I instinctively leaned back – biiiig mistake! He was emboldened to begin waddling up my belly and as he reached my chest I realized that I was in extremis. I began straightening back up and he quickly got the message that I was an alpha male who was not about to take being plucked bare lying down! We have to ensure that we don’t loom over the birds lest they be frightened into cardiac arrest in the worst-case situation, so I had to gradually keep getting up to get him to hop off without being too scary. He still nips at the hook-and-loop fuzz on the leg cuffs of my coveralls to remind me of his “affection” and he’s always getting in the way when I’m trying to spray away the latest layer of penguin poop off of the artificial rocks in their exhibit area before it hardens into a guano version of concrete, which only takes a day if you don’t scrub and spray a couple of times a day.

I’m working on a similar image and video collection and RF transmitter tag direction-finding system to be mounted on utility poles overlooking the coastal areas here so that we can better monitor our California sea otters that remain endangered from parasites, pollution, and predators that mistake their mostly fur-and-bones bodies for blubber-rich harbor seals. A sea otter was recently found shot near a marina where fishing boats moor and how anyone could consider a 60-pound otter that eats 15 pounds of mostly crabs, abalone, mussels, and clams a day a threat to their catch of fish isn’t much of a fisherman.

This is good news for the Pi-powered rocket we’re working on. It’s cold in space.