We will photograph feedings of birds (Great tits and also Barn owls) by nest boxes with camera traps to know who, what and when they bring a prey in. A PIR sensor is not working well enough during tests (Bushnell Agressors and Reconyx HC500 are tested). They missed to much events of the well isolated birds. The birds has pit tags, but that system failed +-10%. And that could be the clue of the research...
By that I was thinking to connect a simple and less energy consuming IR beam on a trail cam like this one: http://eltima.de/jokie-179/product/jokie2.html?details=features-180
I can also connect DSLR's on the IR beam, but that is most times not so easy to install and to much disturbance for barn owls.
I know the Reconyx PC-series can work with an external sensor as trigger with a special cable, but that price is (a bit) far above budget. (http://images.reconyx.com/file/Professional%20Settings%20User%20Guide.pdf)
Now I tried to connect a IR port on a Bushnell E2. But how can I switch of the PIR sensor? And where to solder the port for IR beam on? An extra plug is easy to install, but the input of the PIR is horrible to find...
Are there maybe some others who have experience with connecting trail cams on a IR barrier? Or maybe are there other brands that have also this option?
I like to come in contact with them and like to share experiences in this.
Hello René, I think the cameras that you installed missed some events because are degned for bigger animals and probably they have a detection limit (they can not detect easily something that moves very close to the IR sensor). I used different Bushnell models and I had the same problems. My opinion is to try a camera that is designed to work within 2-3 m maximum. Try to see if "Bushnell NatureView Cam" is better for your work.
Hi Marios,
Thanks for your suggestion. I don't know or that is the clue, I think they miss also a lot for birds, and are also not real quick in speed... I will do a try, but we need 100% of the fly-ins and outs.
Maybe I can also do what Robert did: http://robertsblog.net/uncategorized/bridge-camera/
René
Hi again,
this is a good solution (the dslr mod). I saw it onse in a project in Antarctica. Did you try to set the cameras to record video instreat of shooting pictures? You can set the camera to enable video recording from long distance (to make the IR sensor enable when it will detect the bird aproaching the nest) and record for a lot of time. So you will have the bird in and out. But you will need big sd cards and visit and change the batteries very often (probably every morning). For the dslr mode...i think you will need more batteries than the stock. In that project in Antarctica they used car battery.
For monitoring inside nest boxes I recommend CCD camera with a standalone mini DVR, see attached paper.
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