· What is inside a Camera Bird Box?

The main parts of a camera bird box are the nest box which provides a protected space inside which the birds will create their nest, the camera, mounted to get a view of the nesting activity a method of providing the electric power needed for the camera and a method of getting the picture to the display device such as a TV.

Getting each of these right to suit your choice will make all the difference to the success of your camera nest box. We discuss the differences between camera bird boxes below.

Enjoy Birds More make a wide range of camera bird boxes, many of which have features (such as long battery life, or combined white/infra red lights) not readily available elsewhere. We hold UK Patent 2520252 which covers many of these innovations and do not licence it to anyone else.  Only by buying a camera bird box from us ensures that you get this leading UK technology.

· What Type of Box?

Nest boxes are made in a variety of different materials, and come in different shapes and sizes. The way a camera bird box is constructed varies, as do the arrangements for housing any battery or on/off switch etc.

o Material

The nest box used for a camera bird box is, more often than not, wooden, which is a natural material and the obvious material to use to attract birds, since all a bird box is doing is to mimic a hole in a tree etc.

However other materials are sometimes used to make bird boxes. These include metal, plastic of various types and concrete/sawdust mixture.

Wooden camera nest boxes come in a variety of types of wood. The wood can be either “planked” ie made from a solid rectangular pieces of wood, plywood, or fibreboard ie a mixture of sawdust and adhesive, or may be simply cut from a single piece of wood. We would advise against fibreboard, as the glues used in this material may give off vapours which deter nesting or even cause some sort of harm to the nesting birds, quite apart from the effects of a damp atmosphere which can make these camera nest boxes fall apart in a short space of time.

Solid wood construction is prone to warping or splitting, so a box made from this material will probably in a few years (or sometimes sooner) start having gaps or holes which affect its suitability as a home for the birds, and gradually get worse.

We recommend the use of plywood for a camera nest box, as it has much better dimensional stability, and is less likely to split or warp, so should last much longer than solid wood. Plywood is also generally a much better insulator than solid wood or other materials.

We do not recommend the use of plastic, metal or concrete for camera bird boxes, as they are not natural, and may not provide such a good home for the birds.

Concrete/sawdust mixture is very heavy (these boxes typically weigh 4 times as much as wooden boxes) and therefore it is more difficult (and potentially dangerous) to put up a camera bird box made of this material. The concrete in the material reduces its value for insulation.

Use of these different materials have different effects on the environment, and we think it is important to choose a camera bird box made with timber which comes from responsibly managed forests. If you don't do this, you may inadvertently be contributing to the destruction of the world's rainforests! It is easy to check this, by looking for the FSC or PEFC certification. Many wooden camera nest boxes do not carry this certification, and most concrete/sawdust boxes don't!

For these reasons, each camera bird box supplied by us is made of exterior grade plywood, and certified FSC. They are made for us by the Nestbox Company Ltd, and we can't recommend them highly enough!

o Size

A camera bird box needs to provide the right environment for its occupants, as well as to offer a suitable mounting point for the camera.

The camera needs to be mounted far enough away to get a good picture, so a little more space is needed inside which can be a problem in smaller nest boxes.

Small boxes will be suitable for a wide range of small garden birds, whilst if you are trying to attract a larger species, a specialist box, such as our Camera Nest Box for Large Birds may be required. Enjoy Birds More can fit cameras on request into owl nest boxes and other specialist boxes.

o Construction

Most wooden nestboxes are fabricated from panels and then nailed, screwed or stapled together. We recommend that no oil or solvent based paint or treatment is applied to the boxes, nor extras such as roofing felt. All of these may deter nesting or be the cause of harmful fumes.

Concrete/sawdust boxes are moulded, and usually have a dense coat of paint or similar. Whilst this may be injurious to the birds, an impervious layer is often necessary, since if water enters the material, it will be soaked up by the sawdust, and if the camera nest box is exposed to frost, there is a risk of the material cracking.

All our camera bird boxes are fabricated by stapling plywood panels together, and finished with a light water based bird friendly stain/preservative.

o Housing the Battery

For any camera bird box intended to be operated by battery, it is necessary to provide some sort of housing for the batteries. It is preferable to have a battery box a few metres away from the nest box, so that the batteries can be changed without (for example) climbing a tree to do so, and without disturbing the birds.

 

The Eco Nest Box, Garden Nest Box and Camera Nest Box for Large Birds all have separate switched battery boxes.

· Type of Camera

o Black and White or Colour

The miniature cameras used in camera bird boxes are of two types: Colour or Black and White. Either can give good TV pictures and operate at the same speeds, but colour tends to be more expensive, although the price difference is reducing.

Enjoy Birds More only uses colour cameras as they feel that colour is part of the experience of watching birds, whether in a nest box or outside. We wouldn't want to sell a camera bird box that wasn't colour.

o Technology

Camera bird boxes use camera technology which is based on arranging for the light, after passing through the lens system, to fall on an electronic sensor (the equivalent to the film on a photographic camera). The data from the sensor is processed by the camera's electronics to send a picture to the TV.

There are 2 types of sensor in use: CCD (standing for Charge Coupled Device), and CMOS (standing for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor).

CCD sensors were invented in the 1960s, and essentially consist of many tiny capacitors arranged in rows and columns over the surface of the sensor. When light hits an individual capacitor, the capacitor becomes charged. To “take” the photo, these charges are all passed across row by row (ie one column at a time) to readers at the end of each row, which in turn pass their readings on to the electronics which assembles the whole picture.

CMOS sensors are a more recent development and consist instead of similar tiny sensors as well as transistors to process the information right next to each tiny sensor.

CMOS sensors are manufactured using the same process as manufacture of memory and processor chips, and because of the volume, are less expensive to produce as well as more reliable. They use much less electricity than CCD but are not so sensitive to light.

CMOS cameras are generally smaller than CCD cameras, use much less (from 4 to 100 times) electricity, but do not give such a bright image.

The sensitivity of the cameras depends on both the sensors and electronics in the camera bird boxes. The electronics are designed to allow for a good image in as wide a range of light levels as possible. This is known as the “dynamic range”, but as the light level in bright sunshine may be many thousands of times brighter than the lowest light level at which the camera can obtain a picture, the electronics can sometimes be defeated. At either extreme of light level, the picture will tend to lose detail and either go very dark or very light.

Enjoy Birds More uses both CMOS and CCD cameras in its wildlife camera and camera bird box products.

· Illumination Inside Box

To get a good picture you need to get an appropriate light level inside the camera bird box. There are 3 approaches to this:

o Natural Light

To get a good colour picture in daylight, the simplest solution is to rely on daylight. As there will probably not be enough light entering through the entrance hole, it is common practice to add a “window” to allow a limited amount of additional light in to the camera bird box. As one of the attractions of the box to birds is usually that it is relatively dark, this window needs to be relatively small.

The Eco Nest Box and Eco Mono Nest Box both use this approach.

o White Light

Some of the most advanced camera bird boxes don't have a window but put a small white light inside the box. This has the big advantage that it gives a much better regulated light level inside the camera bird box, and enables better quality pictures.

 

Enjoy Birds More has 2 camera bird boxes which use this approach: the Garden Nest Box and the Camera Nest Box for Large Birds.

o Infra Red Light

Infra red lights are used at night for some camera bird boxes to allow the nest to be watched 24 hours a day. Infra red is used as it is not visible to the birds, so cannot affect their natural sense of day/night. When the box is illuminated with infra red the picture will look black and white.

All the camera bird boxes from Enjoy Birds More have infra red illumination.

Enjoy Birds More's most sophisticated camera nest boxes – the Garden Nest Box and Camera Nest Box for Large Birds have an appropriately advanced lighting system. This checks the natural light level coming into the camera bird box every 10 minutes or so, and if there is sufficient light for a colour picture it switches off the lights inside. If it is so dark that it considers it night time (ie from dusk to dawn) it switches on the infra red light. If the light level is between these two, it will switch on the white light.

· Audio

Some camera bird boxes have a microphone in the box, and the electronics to provide sound from the TV.

All the camera bird boxes from Enjoy Birds More include audio.

· Transferring Picture to TV

There are 2 ways of transferring the images from the camera bird box to the TV or display unit:

o Wired Camera Bird Box

With a wired camera bird box, the picture is sent directly over a cable from the camera bird box to the TV or other device used as a display. The pictures and audio are less susceptible to interference than wireless systems, but with losses in the cable, may not travel as far as a wireless system.

The Eco Mono Nest Box can operate as a wired camera bird box.

o Wireless Camera Bird Box

With a wireless camera bird box, there is a transmitter in the camera bird box, and this transmits the pictures and audio to a receiver using radio waves. The receiver is typically located in the house, and connects to the TV to display the pictures and play the sounds.

The nominal range of these camera bird boxes is usually 100 metres, and they use the 2.4GHz band, as do WiFi networks and Bluetooth devices. Because it is usually easy to ensure that local WiFi networks use a different channel, interference is not normally a problem.

Wireless camera bird boxes avoid the need to run a cable from camera to TV, which saves time, looks better, avoids drilling holes through the wall, and eliminates the hazards of tripping over trailing cables.

We recommend wireless, and the following of our camera bird boxes use this form of transmission: Eco Mono Nest Box, Eco Nest Box, Garden Nest Box, Camera Nest Box for Large Birds.

· Power for the Camera

The electronics inside the camera nest box require electricity to run. Often there is a camera, lighting system and wireless transmitter all needing power.

o Mains

By using a small mains power supply unit, all camera nest boxes can be powered using mains electricity. For wired camera bird boxes, the power can be provided through a combination video/audio/power cable from the house, but for wireless camera bird boxes, power still needs to be provided, and this needs supplying from a local source. It may not be convenient to provide mains in a shed or garden.

All the camera bird boxes sold by Enjoy Birds More will operate using the supplied mains power supply unit.

o Battery

All camera bird boxes can be operated by battery, but some products on sale do not provide any sort of box or enclosure for the batteries, and may necessitate climbing up to the nest box to change batteries. The only practical way of operating some wireless camera bird boxes may be by mains.

Enjoy Birds More provides switched battery boxes with (approx) 2.5 metre cables to the nest box for the following camera bird boxes: Eco Nest Box, Garden Nest Box, Camera Nest Box for Large Birds.

The type of battery required for operation varies, and can include throwaway (alkaline etc), or rechargeable batteries.

All the camera bird boxes sold by Enjoy Birds More will operate on throwaway batteries, and the Garden Nest Box and Camera Nest Box for Large Birds are designed to also use rechargeable NiMH size D batteries.

Some wireless camera bird boxes are sold by other companies as battery operated but their battery life can be as low as 2 hours.  We think such a short battery life is not practical!

The Garden Nest Box and Camera Nest Box for Large Birds sold by Enjoy Birds More are designed to give a very long battery life using our patented technology. This can be up to several months.

o Solar

Solar power coming from a solar panel can be used to charge the rechargeable batteries running a camera bird box.

o Wind

A wind turbine or generator can also be used to provide power for a camera bird box.

The Garden Nest Box and Camera Nest Box for Large Birds are both equipped (inside their battery boxes) with charging electronics and sockets so up to 2 charging devices (either Solar Panels or Wind Generators) can be plugged in to power the camera bird box.