Many of you will be familiar with the live stream HD feeders cams on the front of my website. If you click on the ‘Watch my other live cameras’, you will be able to see some of the other live streams I broadcast and my night cameras appear on this page. Sometimes, if I am at home, I will transfer this stream onto the front page of my website. I have a selection of night cameras and, at the moment, I have a quad view of the kestrel box, where owls have been known to visit, a mammal box, the Prickly Diner and a Fox Feeding Station. If I am at my computer in the evenings, I can easily switch the live cameras to a full screen if I see the foxes have arrived or the hedgehog makes an appearance.
This year there are 3 young foxes regularly visiting my feeding station. These are this year’s youngsters and they squabble and argue just like human siblings! I put some dried dog food out every night… enough for a snack but not enough to stop them getting out and hunting for themselves.
This video shows the kind of action you can expect each evening. They usually appear just after dark and will often return several time during the night to see if there is any food left!
The other visitors that you are likely to see are in Prickly Diner. This hedgehog feeding station has lights and a nest box camera inside. If you are lucky, you will see the hedgehogs visiting. You may also see rats who also visit this box. I started putting out a bowl of sunflower seeds in there, as well as the hedgehog food. The rats prefer those and tend to leave my hedgehog food alone then, for my prickly visitors!
This clip shows my latest hedgehog visitor who has made several appearances per night for the last few nights. I hope he is fattening up for the winter!
These cameras are all wired back to my office and into a PC. This PC runs a piece of software called ‘i-catcher Console’. It monitors all of my cameras 24-7 and is motion detection software (just like CCTV systems). When it picks up motion, it records the footage. I can access this footage and take a still or a video from it and this is how I capture all my clips. I don;t have to sit up all night waiting to press the record button…. the system makes it easy!
The first thing I do every morning is check what has happened over night. Every now and then you capture something unexpected… one time I looked through the fox footage and was amazed to see a badger appear and feed alongside the fox! Without this software, I would have never have know that this happened! If you are watching the cameras and see something interesting, just drop me a tweet (@katemacrae) or an email wildlifekate@live.co.uk.