Recording garden wildlife

pineapple

Hi folks. Is it possible to set up a camera in the garden with a live feed to the laptop? I also want to record nocturnal visitors. What kit do I need, bearing in mind I'm a bit of a technological numpty and does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks. 

Browntoa

You are looking at a motion detection camera with night vision . Most record to a SD card in the unit 

Browntoa

This is an sd card unit

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N7FXWP1/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_GkVaFbXHKD29S

Browntoa

Ones to live stream are much more expensive and require cabling from your laptop to the unit .

Some SD card units have WiFi but the range tends to be limited . Maybe someone has one on here and can help

Paula_Smith

Judging by the results from my wildlife camera trap you would have to spend many hours of your life looking at a live screen to get any worthwhile pictures. Of course your set up might be much better.
We spent about 15 quid on a cheap camera to see what was out there - saw blurry foxes and cats - upgraded to about 70 quids worth of camera and the images are much better but no way in dslr category. Now we see blurry hedgehogs as well.

Neil_Jones

Yeah, unfortunately unless you stay up all night you'd probably going to see sod all live.  No such thing as "Foxes have talent", unless your name's Basil of course

Might be better to record the goings and then sift through the output to see anything of interest.  Night vision will be a must, otherwise you will literally see sod all.  Note that this makes a lot of animals who happen to look at the camera look like something off Village of The Damned, what with reflections from the eyes, and cats eyes are probably he best known example of this phenomenon.

Keep_pedalling

you you don’t say what sort of nocturnal visitors. A trail cam will capture the odd mammal but the vast majority of nocturnal visitors will be invertebrates and none of those will be recorded with a trail cam.

A light trap on the other hand can bring in hundreds of species. Most will be moths but other insects will also be attracted including beetles and caddiesflies. The hardest thing thought is actually trying to identify what you catch.