Anyone know anything about birdbox cameras?

[FunkyNige]

Parents have some birdboxes in their garden and (semi)inspired by Springwatch I'd like to get a camera to stick inside one of the boxes so they can see what's going on. Does anyone know what I should look out for? Ideally I'd want one they can plug into the TV so can flick it on and see what's going on. A quick Google brings up this which seems to fit the bill but I don't really know!

There's a power supply near the box so that's OK, and the TV is about 20m from the box so that's OK. Is there something I'm missing with this one?

Any helpful hints and advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Mitchp]

Did something similar last year with a bat box. The bats didn't end up using the box so we put the camera under a bush to watch some nesting ducks - we saw them sit the eggs over a few weeks, hatch and waddle off (all 15 chicks) to the pond it was great.

I used some kit form a supplier www.naturecameras.co.uk who deal specifically with bird box cameras. I mounted the camera externally [on the bat box] as the lens was of a reasonably wide angle but it took up too much room in the box, so it just hung out the back which was better for reception.

I tested the range to about 100m, so 20m shouldn't be a problem, as long as there are not too many obstructions . They also do a usb kit to allow you to hook it up to a pc/web server so we hosted bat cam and duck cam for a few months!

Hope that helps

[_dobbo_]

I got the old man a wireless one for his birthday, pretty sure it was this one. He set it up and some Blue Tits nested, the picture was great and there was sound too, funny to listen to them all cheeping away. He then got to watch all 8 chicks die over the course of a week, he was gutted.

Happy Birthday....

In the other bird box he had a wired camera, a blackbird nested there then a rat ate all the chicks. Good times all round.