Nest Box Cam

Ger Roe

Hello all,

I have a home made nest box cam running at the moment with a Blue Tit sitting on 7 eggs.

The camera is a 2.4Ghz wireless, with sound. It should be in colour, but the box is so dark that it is on auto infra red (night vision) most of the time. Needs some more experimentation for next season.

Full time sitting started last Tuesday, so maybe another week or so to hatch?.

The box has been up waiting for three years, but this is the first time that it has been occupied.

If anyone wants to take a look, it is streaming here

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gv-nest-cam

Hopefully the cobbled together tech that I am using will hold up till fledge time.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

About 14 days to hatch and a further 20 to fledge.

Ger Roe

Eggs have started hatching this morning. Difficult to see in night vision, but there is a big blob of heat in the nest now. Parents have a busy day ahead - feeding commenced immediately.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gv-nest-cam

Alun

I have one too, but I think the crappy old laptop I have it running on will implode if I tell everyone the link

Ours had 7 eggs too, 5 hatched in one go, one the next day and finally the last one the day after. The first ones hatched last Tuesday, and they're very, very hungry at the moment with both parents flying in and out regularly. The female sits on the chick during the night but never seems to sleep. She's constantly fidgeting around and occasionally nose dives into the nest under the chicks doing god knows what ... probably cleaning I think.

They were tiny when born, but you can already see some growth, and stripes of what I assume are feathers appearing on their backs and wings.

Alun

Here's a short video of the chicks from yesterday. Please excuse the quality, both of video and audio. Improvements are planned for next year pending budget approval from SWMBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSxb5R1VyiA

Alun

Saw something this morning I hadn't seen before ... chick turns upside down exposing it's bum and one of the adults picked something from there and flew off with it. I assume it was a 'poo sac'?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

That's exactly what it was and you should start to see this at almost every feed. It's how the nest box is kept clean, removes smells that might attract predators and generally keeps the young healthier.

Alun

Previously to seeing this I often noticed the female diving underneath the chicks, would she have been doing the same thing here? What I mean is, would the chicks offering their bottoms be something they would have only just learned to do?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

No, she was sorting the nest bowl out.

Alun

Here's a longer video ... from about 4:35 you can clearly see a 'poo sac' being produced and taken away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t6O1C0YaYo

Alun

I've noticed a slight change in behaviour the last day or two as the chicks have developed. Before, in the periods between feeding, they'd all just kind of slump in a heap and only react when the parents came in to feed them.

Now, they seem more alert, and are all sitting upright, heads pointing in the direction of the nestbox entrance. Could their eyesight be developing such that even though they still have a covering over their eyes, they can detect light coming in through the entrance, or is there another reason?

Luckily the two 'runts' who hatched later than the others seem to be managing OK now as the difference in size to their brethren seems to have decreased a little. Was a bit worried about them for a while.

Ger Roe

Five chicks are in the nest box chattering away and getting ready to fly. Maybe sometime between now and Monday.

Very cute looking at the moment

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gv-nest-cam

Alun

Yes, they won't be long now. I noticed with ours that once the mother stops staying in the nest with them overnight then it's pretty imminent.

Of the 7 eggs in ours only 5 made it in the end, and of those 5, 2 fledged early and the remaining 3 took some persuasion to leave a couple of days later.

fryup

great footage OP,

what make of camera are you using and whats your setup?

Ger Roe

That's it for this year...

The five chicks fledged this morning between 09:30 and 10:00.
It was great to watch in the garden as they took their first flights.
The nest is now quiet and empty, but five more blue tits have started out in life.

The camera I was using was a 2.4 ghz wireless colour camera with sound and infra red LED lighting. I picked it up from china on the internet.

Like these

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/2-Wireless-Color-Security-Color-Camera-IR-CCTV-2-4GHz-/281169489429?pt=UK_Sound_Vision_Other&hash=item417701ee15

The nest box is situated close to a shed which has power in it. I lengthened the power lead on the camera so that it could be plugged in at the shed. The camera was mounted on the roof of the nest box, looking down at the floor and peeking through a small hole in a false ceiling (ie in the 'attic' space). This was so the birds would not see the camera (reflection) or peck at wires.

The wireless receiver was placed near a window in my kitchen with a long video/sound phono lead connecting it to a scart switch box that then split the sound/vision to a tv (for live monitoring) and to a PC for upload to the internet. The PC/internet side was done through a Tevion usb video adapter (bought in Lidl and used for converting analog video to hard disc storage) through a laptop that has sat on the kitchen table for the past two months.

It was all a bit rough and ready, but it worked, most of the time.
Next year I am going to try some led lighting on a timer as the infra red vision was on most of the time because the box was dark, even in daylight. With better lighting there should be some colour showing and the infra red whiteout effect will not be so evident.

I was very happy with this attempt, it was great fun to watch and listen in to something that was happening in our garden.