New Nest Box

What I had really gone to see the other day when I visited Woodthorpe Hall Garden Centre was their selection of nest boxes. In the past I had seen they stocked some with cameras built in and I was hoping they were still available. The demo box was on view but I could not see any on sale. On asking an assistant he went and checked and found the last one in store which had a colour camera. It would appear they had not been selling well and that was likely to be the last of that type there so I purchased it.

The old black and white camera in my home brew (Heath Robinson) box had failed and I don't think the box was the right size so I decided to replace that one. The camera in the new box is colour only though it does have white light LEDs which are adjustable for brightness. The main design fault is that the adjuster is next to the camera where it would have been more sensible to my mind to have that control near the power supply. Anyway I adjusted them to somewhere near pale Moon light so I could have some sort of picture at night.

The box is very substantial and all sections are fixed with screws making it easy to adapt for different birds and for cleaning. I decided to remove the top front section so it would be a Robin box. That way there would be plenty of daylight for the camera. The camera is in an enclosed section at the top and the lens pokes through a hole looking down into the box. After much cursing and wobbling on a precarious step stool I managed to fix it in some large evergreens.



Video pictures look good so now it is back to the old waiting game to see if there are any takers next Spring. The last box was only visited twice that I saw and that was by a Great Tit which was looking for insects to eat. In the photo it looks as though the box is in full daylight but in fact I used flash as it is a reasonably shady spot.

Honey still is still AWOL. It is well over a week now since any Hedgehog visited the feeding area. The video is on auto capture but the only things which have triggered the recorder has been rain (plenty of that on many nights), a spider which insists on having a web in front of the camera, and the odd cat. Since I installed the Cat Gard there has only been one cat  on a couple of occasions but it passes through quickly and doesn't hang around any more. Honey had stopped visiting before the cat deterrent was installed so it isn't that which is keeping her away.