Trail Cameras? Ever heard of them? No me neither until 18 months ago or so. Some time back my wife suggested I build a Hedgehog house, so out of scraps I knocked up the little house that can be seen below.
The little hedgehog house was built and positioned as advised the various hedgehog groups my wife follows on facebook, but no visitors. “We need a camera” she proclaimed, so I started googling as you do but soon became quite despondent due to the price of these things, the baffling range, features etc. But my wife really wanted one and by this time x-mass was approaching and she suggested perhaps me and the kids could ‘chip-in’ for one. So that’s what we did for her that x-mass (2020), about £80, good reviews on Amazon, and as I write this in July 2023, it has served us well, provided entertainment, given me a new (free after the initial purchase) hobby/pastime with the camera set-ups and video clip editing etc.
And as the collection of little videos grew, I wanted to store them somewhere for prosperity and to enable sharing with friends & family but although short, the video files were too big to share via iMessage, e-mail etc. So where better than YouTube!
We were enjoying watching the birds and other garden visitors from this one camera siting, but then (using more scrap pipe) I created another camera position below, much lower and with a wider view of our small garden from the opposite end …
This camera position gave us the footage below which I gave the working title “Cat Kill Fox Steal” … and it seems (from the YouTube comments) my bad grammar and poor english drew viewers in their 000’s
Soon I was in a routine of collecting the camera daily while out feeding the pet rabbit, fish, wild birds etc. The process of transferring the video files from the micro sd card to the laptop is a little tedious but the results are worth it. But some days there is nothing at all on the camera, sometimes there are dozens even hundreds of clips recorded that have to be looked at ‘just in case’ only to find that the sensitivity was set too high and all you have captured is a blade of grass or some other greenery just blowing in the wind. Or my first rookie mistake the trains passing by as our garden backs onto the railway!
Here are some other clips …
I have since modified the old kids trampoline galvanised pipe to provide an articulated and swiveling camera mount with various lengths of pipe to enable various set-ups and positions, see below one example …
Back in 2021 the cable ties were a ‘do for now’ experimental fixing to impatiently capture some footage. The idea remains unchanged! It just ‘works’. The camera is easily removed by gently sliding upwards, and when replacing on any of the various ‘camera mounts’ (old trampoline pipes) simply hooks back over the pipe and locates positively against the underside of the inbuilt solar panel. Simple is usually best, but I may succumb to my wife’s insistence that I at least trim the excess cable ties … maybe? We’ve since also painted the pipes green and disguised with some cheap fake ivy. That works too!
So if you want a cheap mindful escape from reality, the cost of living crisis, politics and all the other madness that is our modern world, then I can highly recommend one of these little cameras and the wealth of wildlife that lives its life on your doorstep.
I currently have a folder full of 20 second video clips on my laptop’s desktop. Viewing/compiling/editing takes time and in my mind is a ‘winter pastime’ huddled under a blanket with the laptop, so I have no plans to sift through those clips while the weather is good. But I’m still collecting the footage so watch this space for updates.
Thank you for reading & watching 🙂
PS: I almost forgot to say “Have you worked out why we have no Hedgehogs?” … I believe the answer is in the footage we’ve captured and shared here? We’d be pleased to hear any comments.
Baffled Ape 