Vulture voyeur a sensor-packed egg monitors nests from the inside

Vultures are nature's garbage collectors, helping the environment by consuming dead animal carcasses. In this way, they are essential in stopping the spread of diseases such as rabies (which vultures are immune to). However, recent years have seen the number of vultures decline, particularly in South Asia, where some species are close to becoming extinct due to the toxic effects of a drug used to treat cattle. To protect vulture populations, one of the things we need to know more about is their breeding behavior. A year ago we at Microduino were approached by the International Centre for Birds of Prey (ICBP) as part of a project to achieve this end. The ICBP needed to create an electronic egg to monitor vulture nests. The conservationists there wanted the egg to include a host of sensors that could measure both its internal temperature and the temperature gradient across its surface, as well as barometric pressure, humidity, carbon dioxide levels, light intensity, and the egg's rotation and movement. The data would then be transmitted to a relay node and uploaded to the cloud.