Hi everyone,
I would like to monitor brooding temperatures in an open-cup nesting birds using Thermochron ibuttons, wired into the nest. Someone recently mentioned that ibuttons do poorly in humid conditions. Is there a recommended way to coat the ibuttons to prevent this problem ex-liquid rubber? If so, does anyone know how coatings affect the accuracy of temperature readings?
Thanks!
Hi Kit. Like Sean mentioned, Plasti-dip is the go-to method of protecting ibuttons. You can pick it up for about $5 at any hardware store. Great for humidity and waterproofing.
When I have used them I have always calibrated before deploying. The method I've used is to plasti-dip the ibuttons, then submerge them in a water bath of a known temperature. Have the ibuttons record temperatures every minute for say 15 minutes and manually record the temperature at the same intervals with a highly accurate thermometer. Repeat this process at a couple of temperatures ranging across the temperatures you expect to occur. You can then see how accurate each individual ibutton is and decide if you need to correct the temperatures or not. I've found that they remain very accurate despite the plasti-dip.
I've heard some bird species are finicky about the ibuttons in their nest and will eject them. Are you going to be painting them to look like eggs or wiring them to the side/bottom of the nest? Please let me know how it goes as I may be using a similar approach next summer.
Brett
I agree with with Mr. Sean and Plasti-Dip is the most simple solution of your problem.
I have used two methods to 'weather proof' iButtons, the most effective I found was covering them in cling film (plastic wrap you cover sandwiches with). I had these out in the fells of North West England which has a decent amount of rainfall. The only problem with these was that the shiny surface of the iButton was still exposed.
The other method I used previously was to cover the iButtons in black tape. I used this method for monitoring nest temperature of Vanellus vanellus and it worked very well.
Our lab has used uncoated Ibuttons to measure incubation attentiveness patterns with some success in very wet places. If you are interested in actual temperature however, the readings will almost certainly be too variable from nest to nest to give you much of a meaningful signal. My two cents..
Do you dip them the ibuttons once in the plasti-dip and how long does it typically take for them to dry/be used?
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