The Big Field.
A hundred and eighty acres from a pole at the top of the rise. Drilling in September, nothing for eight months, and then three weeks in July that decide whether the year worked.
- Angle
- Fixed · 50 mm · elevated
- Live
- All year · Best in July
- Uptime, 90 days
- 97.8%
What it is actually pointed at.
This is the camera that shows a crop as a crop rather than as a close-up. From the pole you can see the whole field at once, which means you can see the thin ground on the tops go off colour in a dry June about a fortnight before anybody standing in it notices.
Cotswold brash is fifteen to forty-five centimetres of stony soil over limestone. It drains beautifully and holds almost no water. That is why the tops fail first, and on this camera you can watch them do it.
For three weeks in July the field goes from standing to stubble. It is the single most watched sequence in the archive and the only one people ask us to re-run.
Worth watching when.
| When | What you get |
|---|---|
| July, any afternoon | The combine. Three weeks a year, and the reason for the pole. |
| September | Drilling. A tractor going back and forth for two days, which is oddly calming. |
| A dry June | The tops going pale before the bottoms do. It is the whole agronomic problem in one frame. |
| February | Mud, rooks, and a green haze if the autumn drilling took. |
Across the year, on this camera.
Winter wheat, if it went in, sitting there being green.
Growing, and the month everyone watches the sky.
Harvest.
The three weeks the whole camera exists for.
Stubble, then cultivation, then drilling, then dark.
The rig on this one.
The Big Field
- Mount
- Standalone pole at the field top, 6.5 m
- Lens
- Fixed, 50 mm equivalent
- Stream
- 1080p at 25 fps, 2.2 Mbps
- Power
- Solar with a battery, hence the winter dropouts
- Area in frame
- About 180 acres
- Uptime, 90 days
- 97.8%
Uptime is the rolling ninety-day figure. When the stream is not available this page shows the last good frame instead: In December the panel does not always keep up. When it does not, you get the last good frame and the time it was taken.
The four things every camera here promises.
Fixed
No pan, tilt or zoom for anybody outside the farm office.
Silent
No audio on this camera or any other.
Pointed at us
No footpath, no neighbour’s land, no public highway in frame.
Fallback
In December the panel does not always keep up. When it does not, you get the last good frame and the time it was taken.
The other cameras.
Nine others, all fixed, all silent, all pointed at this farm.
What is worth watching this month.
A table of the whole year, camera by camera, so you are not opening ten tabs to find the one with something in it.
