BirdWatchCam – Helmeted Honeyeater Summary 3
BirdWatchCam - Helmeted Honeyeater. Legband white on dark green. Full shot.
Weather
The camera was left outside in a range of conditions. It actually worked through a severe storm and the inner waterproofing surround stopped water entering the batteries and SD card area (inner core). It doesn’t matter what angle the camera was it on it still protects the inner core.
There was some fogging of the lens early in the morning after the major rain event but this cleared within a couple of hours after sunrise.
Checking / Downloading Footage
This is very simple. Can easily take a laptop out into the field (study site). Extremely easy to change the batteries and the SD card whilst in the field. Was able to quickly check the JPG folders whilst in the field, also download to my laptop and return SD card into the camera within 10 minutes.
It is recommended to take an initial quick image and check using your laptop before setting up the camera for long periods to ensure you will get the best quality images.
BirdWatchCam - Helmeted Honeyeater. Legband yellow on light green. Cropped.
Bird Identification
Can easily see bird bands and identify birds. All birds that came into view were visibly identified by their leg band during the series of 20 shots taken.
Benefits
Currently a lot of video film is taken for fieldwork of this nature. The BirdWatchCam reduces the need to plough through endless hours of footage with nothing in the frame, as the folders of JPG files were very easy to skip through to find presence of birds.
Good application for bird identification (species and individuals by leg band) within a given area (less than 54cm x 40 cm) of known visitation.
The camera is extremely light, the rechargeable batteries and SD card are also light and simple to use (and swap) in the field.
The camera performs well under wet weather tested to about 2 degrees centigrade.
The camera can be left for long periods of time, assumed well over 10 days is possible, before needing to change batteries and/or SD card. More research required for exact details on duration, but after initial trial this is very good as requires minimal physical effort for a potential large amount of data.
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