Storm Highway by Dan Robinson
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                   Friday, April 9, 2010 - 1:33PM CDT

Starling nest building - in the engine compartment

By DAN ROBINSON
Editor/Photographer
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From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation.

In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.

VIDEO: 3-hour timelapse of nest building in engine compartment


click for video

In what has become an interesting and unusual problem, a European Starling has chosen the engine compartment of my truck as a nesting site here in New Baden. I first discovered this on Monday while getting an oil change in Wentzville, Missouri on my way to a storm chasing target. The nest was removed then, but I checked under the hood yesterday - and sure enough, it was nearly fully rebuilt. So, I figured it was time to investigate a little further. I removed most of the nest again, then placed a webcam under the hood last night. Once I saw activity there this morning, I watched from the apartment window with my camera. The link to the the time-lapse video from the webcam is above.


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Here is the fully-built original nest discovered on Monday:


click to enlarge

Update please Dan, how's the nest coming along :-)
- Posted by Mick from UK

Nest is cleared out, and I'm on a weeklong trip out of town - hopefully while I'm gone they'll be forced to find another spot!
- Posted by Dan R. from Washington, PA

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