Captured Images
Bluebird Nest Camera
In the spring of 2008, Cathy and I put up a Bluebird box in the yard in hopes
of attracting a nesting pair. We succeeded beyond our wildest expectations,
learned a lot about their nesting and breeding behaviors (4.8 Mb PDF),
and got some outstanding pictures of the adult Bluebirds and three separate broods
of their offspring. Having long since decided that it would be interesting
to see what was happening inside the nest box, I gathered the necessary materials
(see the list) to build a new nest box with a video camera and infra-red
lights inside.
I modified a plan that I found on the
North American Bluebird Society web site by simply making it tall enough to fit
the camera inside and also made it open from the front instead of the side.
As it happens, this project coincided with another project that I'd wanted to get done for a long time, namely to set up my own web server at home. I decided that I would set up a dedicated web server that would serve dual duty by monitoring and recording the activity in the nest box. I haven't included the web server and firewall (two separate computers) in my list of materials, but they certainly are a critical element of this project. All of the software for both the web server and firewall are open source (read "FREE") although there was a fairly steep learning curve involved in getting everything set up and working properly. This arrangement has the huge benefit of allowing me to monitor both live video feed and recorded events from any Internet connection on the planet. Pretty Cool!
The last innovation that I want to add to my setup is sound. We still can't hear what is happening in the box, and I expect this will be a MUCH easier problem to solve than was the video feed. I've left myself an unused pair of wires from the house to the box that will carry this signal.
Want to know more? I've got some additional pictures of the box and construction notes posted HERE.