On Friday, I went down to G-Scapes, my local nursery, as I had arranged to help them set up a nest box camera system. They had chosen the Gardenature side box and a feeder cam as well, so that the camera can be moved to their feeders in the winter. The garden centre is set in a local craft centre and is a family run business. I will be working with G-Scapes leading up to Gardener’s World Live as they have kindly agreed to loan me the plants I need for my stand.
The centre was very keen to have their own nest box camera system when they saw what I do here in the WildlifeKate patch and last week I had been down to take a look at the area. I had chosen a tree stump covered with ivy in a hedgerow, where there was lots of activity.
This hedge borders the nursery and I felt it was a prime spot.
Dan helped to clear the area of some ivy, to allow the box to be mounted, facing slightly outwards. We trimmed the ivy back to there was plenty of light going into the nest box through the translucent window. This will ensure that the camera remains in colour, rarther than switching to IR.
I then ran the cable all the way back, through the nursery, to the shop and the bird food display area. Here,the team had set up a small portable TV and we plugged the camera into that. Over the coming weeks, I will create a little display here, explaining what is happening. For the time being, I created a little poster….
The whole team at G-Scapes are really enthusiastic and very keen to help maximise the area for wildlife. They already have a great little feeding area and there were lots of house sparrows, chaffinches, collared doves, a robin and tits around. In the winter, we will move the camera onto this area instead.
Byron told me that they often get birds nesting in all sorts of places around the nursery, so there could be potential for more cameras! They are also keen to get some more boxes on to the site. Even the subject of live streaming came up and there is a possibility that we might look at live streaming their images on their website. I have almost exhausted the camera potential here in my patch now and , as you can imagine, I am very excited to possibly have a huge nursery to play with cams in!
I reckon we could get a fantastic range of cameras onto the site and live streaming them on their website would certainly bring people onto their site… watch this space as I feel that the G-Scapes – WildlifeKate partnership is just beginning and there will be great things ahead!
