Last year, I set up ‘Prickly Diner’ when I had more than 3 hedgehogs visiting and the hedgehog box I had been feeding became a bit of a bottle-neck with hedgehogs huffing and puffing at each other in the confined space! I decided to have an open space to try to offer a different space to eat, but being open meant that other species also visited, such as the fox cubs and the neighbour’s cat! I had rigged up some little solar lamps as the hedgehogs did not seem at all worried by the light and it meant my live cameras were in colour. This year, I wanted to have a permanent light on the ‘stage’ so purchased a 12V lamp like the one I have on hedgecam which is working really well. With a power splitter, they can be powered from the camera cable that already runs back to the house.
The whole set up needed a bit of renovations, so I took it apart and strengthened the frame.
I added a piece of marine plywood to protect the feeding area a bit more from the rain…
and then added all the bark bits I had back n to give a more ‘rustic’ look! I mounted the lamp on the side with room to angle it in different ways, with the camera set down low to give a good, intimate view of the visitors.
Placed back in situ, it was ready for action, as everything seemed to be working…..
Returning back inside, however, I found that the camera was not working properly and this was due to the power supply not being powerful enough. I searched around and found a more suitable one, but still no joy, The image from the camera, with the lamp on, suggested that there was not enough power to the camera. After a lot of fiddling around in the dark, we came to the conclusion that the cable possibly not a very good one as when the power to the lamp was plugged in separately, it was ok. I need to have a play around with the lamp today as it needs to be mounted lower so it can reflect off of the roof as it is quite bright.
The problem is, you can’t really tell what it is going to look like until it is dark… then it is really hard to do anything about it! Setting up cameras like this is all trial and error though, so bear with me and hopefully, we should have hedgehogs feeding in full colour this year!