There are roughly 250 owl species worldwide. If you happen to find cavity nesting owls in your area, build and install a nest box that can attract owls, at the same time you can install the bird box camera to watch the owl remotely. Owl are very clever, they may leave the box if they don’t feel safe enough when or if someone were to approach their nesting box. In which case you may be interested in how to choose a bird box camera to spot the owls?
Tiny IP Camera
In order to watch the owl box via mobile phone, the video has to be digitized. The Wi-Fi or IP bird box camera is a tiny camera built based on IP technology. You can connect it to the camera via mobile phone, tablet or PC computer to receive the live footage. There is no extra add-on required. Technically the Wi-Fi bird box camera is a kind of a compact computer with a video sensor to capture the footage. The size should be small to fit into the owl box. The bird box camera definitely could fill it. Usually the birdhouse is smaller than most owl boxes.
Adjustable lens
The camera’s lens should be adjustable. While the camera is shooting closely, the focus becomes very sensitive. It is easy to test this optical feature with the camera on our mobile phone. If you change the shooting distance a little bit, the focus will switch, and the image gets blurry. You will need to adjust the lens for it to re-focus. That is one of the essentials of the bird box camera. There is no way to have focus to match different depth from different birdhouse design.
WiFi vs Wire bird box camera
The camera has to be hooked up the home network for remote viewing the owl box. Whether to choose WiFi or wire bird box cameras depends on the practical situation. With a wire IP bird box camera, you should wire Ethernet cable to one of the network ports (RJ45) for both power and data. The power doesn’t need to present next to the owl box. You can connect the Wi-Fi bird box camera to your home network as long as the Wi-Fi coverage is good. With DC extension cable, the AC outlet doesn’t need to present close to the owl box either. Both cables can be buried underground with outdoor grade cables. There is one more option: is the battery power. You may need to re-charge the battery constantly 4 days around. It could be a wire-free camera system with a battery setup.
Audio pickup
The audio pick up is required with the camera if you want to listen inside the owl box. The bird box camera has a built-in microphone to hear the audio from the owl box. You will watch the HD live video as well as the audio on your mobile devices.
Night Vision
Owls are sensitive to light. The visible light at night is one key factor that results in the owl not feeling safe. However, there is only pure black image from the camera without light. The invisible infrared built-in birdhouse camera can light up the area without spooking the owl. It is 940nm invisible infrared therefore you will be able to see clear images on the mobile phone after the infrared is turned ON.
Outdoor/Indoor bird box cameras
Most of the bird box cameras are not waterproof. So it is better to install them inside the owl box, as long as you keep the camera out of the rain it will work smoothly. The outdoor bird box camera is a little bigger in size than the indoor bird box camera. You may consider the dimension while you select the outdoor bird box camera to fit into your owl box.
Recording – sharing
Owls are loving species, you may want to share the video to your friend or family. If the camera has been connected to a network, others can view the camera with its ID after they install the app on their mobile phone. If you don’t want to share the camera directly, the micro SD card recording feature allows you to record the video on the micro SD card, you can download the recording files to the mobile phone and share on other social platforms. Some enthusiasts even manage to live broadcast the bird box camera on youtube.
Message Notification
You may have no idea when the owl enters the box. However the camera’s notification can send you a message while there is any change in the image. The camera will detect the change between two consequent frames and send out the an alert message to the app. It can alert you if or when something is entering the owl box.
