WIRE IN A NEST CAM
These little cameras are a brilliant way to lose yourself in the daily lives of a family of blue tits, house sparrows or even hedgehogs. They have infrared LED lights to illuminate the nestbox interior, so faint they don’t disturb the wildlife.
SETTING UP a nest cam requires a bit of DIY. Indeed, the key fact usually hidden in the small print is that almost all need to be connected to mains electricity. If you have a socket in a shed or outhouse, it may be fairly easy to feed the cable to the box on an outside wall. However, if your plug points are inside your house, hole that requires through you’ll need a your very wall, to long drill and drill a bit. And confidence!
Next, you need to trail the cable to your nestbox, or bury it underground, making sure you can’t put a spade or fork through it. At least the camera runs on a low-voltage DC current via an adaptor, but it’s still good practice to use an RCD circuit breaker in case of accidents. There are two main ways to get your images. Most products offer two options: ● A ‘wired’ system, where the electricity cable is bundled up with either AV (audio visual) cables that go into the back of your telly, or with network cables to your PC. ● An ‘unwired’ system (a confusing term, given that it still needs an electricity cable), where the images are transmitted either by Wi-Fi or via a mini aerial and receiver.
Thankfully, many systems come as simple plug-in units, including fully equipped nestboxes with an inner housing for the camera.
Site your nestbox within reach of an electricity plug point (most kits come with a 30m/100ft cable). Remember that it needs to be about 2–4m (6–12ft) up a wall, fence or tree for safety, facing between north and east.
Then just switch on to watch the latest action unfold. In winter, you may also get bedtime views of birds cosying up to roost.