Birdbox Webcam

Yesterday was one of those rare days at the moment where we had some dry weather, so I took the opportunity to clean out the birdbox at the side of the house and make sure the camera was set up and working.

There was a Blue Tit nest in the box last year which was reasonably successful in that some of the chicks fledged. I try and get the box ready around Christmas as birds start looking for nesting sites at the start of the year if the weather is reasonably mild.

The following picture shows the box mounted next to the side of the house.

The box on the side houses the connecting block between the cables leading to the computer and the camera.

The camera is this small CCTV camera from Henry's mounted on the lid of the box facing down. I have also included a white LED in the box which is always on to add some light.

The camera is cabled to one of my Shed Computers which runs CamUniversal from Crazypixels.

CamUniversal is configured for motion detection, comparing pictures every 5 seconds and saving pictures if there is a change. This ensures that any activity in the box is captured. CamUniversal is also configured to save a picture every 60 seconds. This is then uploaded to my monitoring web site so I can check any build up of activity and whether nesting has started.

The weather today has been a significant improvement on recent weeks with plenty of sunshine and this seems to have prompted some immediate inspections of the birdbox. Checking the folder which holds pictures taken when motion is detected I found a number with a bird checking out the box. See the following as an example:

Hopefully nest building may start soon and I shall have another successful nest in 2014.

If you want to check what is happening, the 60 second snapshot can be found here.