Now that winter is well and truly behind us, it means that those of us who love nature can get back outdoors. Whether that’s sitting in the garden and watching the local wildlife, going on bug hunts with the kids or sowing some seeds to grow your own vegetables.
For us, we enjoy bird watching. As a dad of five children, I’ve tried to encourage all of my children to spend time outdoors and to enjoy it. My older three children enjoy playing football, whereas my five year old twins love to dig in the dirt, sow seeds and watch the animals that inhabit our garden.
The most regular visitors to our garden are a pair of pigeons. They always visit in the early hours of the morning and can either be seen sitting on the garden fence or pecking at the ground in search of something to eat.
We also have a squirrel that regularly visits, and last summer a field mouse sat on our patio eating a dandelion, much to the girls delight! It was a pretty tame mouse and didn’t mind the girls sitting quite close by observing him!
That’s the tricky thing about nature though. Whilst we love to watch them, getting too close can mean that we scare them off by accident and that’s not something we want to do. We like to encourage wildlife in our garden! It’s one of the main reasons that we took part in the RSPSB’s big bird watch this year and we also made some pretty cool pinecone bird feeders. The squirrel took quite a fancy to these though so I’m not sure how much of it actually got to the birds!
I find that one of the best ways for us to observe the birds in our garden without scaring them off is by using bird box cameras. In particular the range of green feathers wireless HD bird box cameras are some of my favourites. They’re small, discreet and have night vision too!
The one pictured below comes with a 20m cable. It’s a tiny camera which is perfect as a bird box camera. It also has 6 invisible infra-red IR LEDs for discreet night vision.
If you prefer not to have a cable, you can of course opt for a wireless bird box like the one pictured below. The great thing about both of these cameras is that they’re the size of a matchbox. The wireless one also has a USB video capture device kit which captures 700TVL resolution for crisp video images. It also has a wide angle lens, along with night vision which are great for bird nesting boxes.
As this one is wireless, the wireless range is up to 50m. Simply install it in your garden and use the included receiver to record both audio and video without the need for cables. I love that you can view live footage from the comfort of your living room, something my girls will enjoy! You just connect it to the TV or a monitor using the cable that’s included.
They’re so simple to install, but here’s handy video in case you need some help. Do you or your children watching the animals in your garden? Perhaps you too like to do a bit of bird watching? Let me know in the comments below!
1 Comments
Karen, the next best thing to mummy
March 30, 2017 at 6:03 pm
I received a camera for our bird nesting box, a few years ago as a birthday present, since then no birds have used it, maybe this year, they will, we were lucky enough to have a hedgehog visit last year and a three legged frog ( who lost a leg to a neighbours lawn mower) in our garden pond!