Wildlife cameras have become an increasingly popular tool for documenting animal activities. A well-placed wildlife camera can reveal the most candid wildlife moments in your backyard and document elusive species that are rarely seen. It offers you a great opportunity to develop a closer relationship with wildlife creatures and investigate the mysteries of their worlds. But the wildlife camera can do more than this.
What is a Wildlife Camera?
The wildlife camera is normally referred to as a digital camera that is strategically placed on your property to document and monitor wildlife activities while you’re not around. Historically used in wildlife research to study animal activity and behavior (for professional use only), the wildlife camera has now become commercially available to average users. And thanks to the development of camera technology, it’s more affordable and easier to use. Whether you’re an experienced wildlife endeavor or a newbie, you can manage this device within minutes.
The Benefits of Using the Wildlife Camera
1.Monitoring Wildlife 24/7: There are so much fun and educational benefits of installing a wildlife camera in your garden. It offers you a cost-effective way to watch wildlife from the comfort of your home. Once set up, the wildlife camera can automatically record everything inside the scene. And it’s known to all that photographing animals is quite challenging, since they will immediately run away once they find any human trace. And since some nocturnal animals like badgers and hedgehogs will only show up at night, installing a wildlife camera could be of great help if you want to find out what they’re up to in the darkness.
2.Surveillance: The wildlife camera can easily blend into the background which makes it applicable to both indoor and outdoor surveillance of personal or public properties and other evidence-taking works like illegal poaching and animal abuse. It’ll be of great use in solving neighbor disputes and deterring potential burglaries.
3.Studying Animal Activities: The wildlife camera is a useful tool to capture wild animals in their natural habitats. It is widely used by researchers to study how environmental changes or human intervention affect the daily activities of wild animals. It’s also of great use in helping hunters figure out the most frequented areas of moving game. You can have a closer look at different wild animals, and learn about their living habits and characteristics.
How to Choose the Right Wildlife Camera for Your Garden?
There are main two types of wildlife cameras: nest box camera and trail camera. The nest box camera is a miniature digital camera that can be easily installed in any standard-sized nest box to let you get up close and personal to see what’s going on inside the nest box. The trail camera is a motion-activated camera usually used by professional researchers, nature lovers and birdwatchers for wildlife observation.
What are the Differences between a Nest Box Camera and a Trail Camera?
Connectivity——The trail camera is 100% wire-free. It supports various power options but it mainly runs on batteries when deployed outdoors, eliminating the need for additional power cabling. Once powered up and configured through the parameter settings, the trail camera can automatically take photos and videos of the monitoring site without a network connection. On the other hand, the nest box camera requires a wired or wireless network connection to stream the videos to the watching device. Moreover, even if it’s a wireless nest box camera, you’ll need to run a power cord from your house.
Shooting Mode——The nest box camera only generates videos during the recording and it will keep on filming. But the trail camera can take photos and videos at the same time. In the hybrid mode, it will take consecutive photos at first and then record videos later. Through parameter settings, the trail camera can be programmed to simultaneously take pictures at predefined intervals and then generate the video with the photos previously taken in the time-lapse mode, which is ideal for recording plant growth, flowering, etc. Moreover, you can set up a timer to arouse the camera to operate in specific periods.
Viewing Mode——The trail camera stores all the photos and videos on a massive SD card, and the normal way to access footage is to retrieve the camera and get the memory card. When the SD card is full, the recording will overwrite the oldest file. Some trail cameras are built with an LCD screen where you can directly play or review the snapshots and videos. On the contrary, by using the nest box camera, you can directly watch the footage on your smartphone, tablet and PC anytime, anywhere via an Internet connection, and some models also support local storage on the SD card. And there’s also a type of TV nest box camera, with which you can watch live videos on TV or any other HDMI monitor from the comfort of your living room.
Recommended Models:
Multi-purpose Outdoor Mini WiFi IP Camera
The multi-purpose outdoor mini WiFi IP camera can produce high-quality color images in 3MP Ultra HD without image degradation even in close-up shooting. Featuring a compact size, it can fit in any standard-sized nest boxes (birdhouses, bat boxes, hedgehog boxes, owl boxes, etc.) or be mounted on feeders (bird feeders, squirrel feeders, etc.) with our specially-made L-shaped bracket. It has a wide-angle lens with adjustable focus to offer a wider field of view (120°). Equipped with a built-in microphone, it delivers true-to-life wildlife sounds. The invisible night vision (infrared LEDs) and daytime LEDs ensure 24/7 recording. Specially designed for outdoor shooting, it is completely waterproof to survive all weather conditions. The multi-purpose outdoor WiFi IP camera is equipped with a sensitive motion sensor to detect any sort of motion changes around the camera and automatically start filming when triggered. And instant notifications will be sent at every trigger event.
Completely waterproof and battery-powered (last for one year in standby mode), it is a highly-sensitive hunting camera with a fully integrated detection system (PIR sensors) to capture crystal-clear images at 16 megapixels and record full HD videos with a resolution of 720p@60fps at a trigger speed of 0.2 seconds. Specially designed for outdoor use, it can work under a wider working temperature range from -30°C to 70°C. Its invisible night vision (IR flash range: 25m/82ft) ensures 24/7 continuous recording without spooking the animals. It’s a fully-functional camera that supports multiple shooting modes (photo, video, hybrid and time lapse). This trail camera supports SD storage (256GB) and its wire-free connectivity offers great versatility for application in any imaginable environment. It has an extremely long in-field battery life (up to 1 year with 8*AA batteries in standby mode). It comes with different mounting options (mounted on a tripod or fastened with a strap) which gives you great flexibility on placement.
