Page last updated on 21st January 2025
Brief History
For many years I have always had nest boxes up in our garden and pairs of House Sparrows often used them to raise a brood. Sadly the population of the Sparrow has significantly dropped in our area now and I only ever see one or two, compared to over twelve or more in the early 90’s.
In 2005 I decieded to move the boxes onto the wall of our house, to try and tempt any interested tenants. In April I noticed a Blue Tit was taking great interest in one of the boxes and after a few weeks the visits increased, with moss and nesting material being brought in. The pair seemed to be doing well with both birds bringing in food for their chicks. Sadly the female abandoned the nest and chicks in May.
Whilst reading through the many bird boxes websites on the web, I was marvelled to see great pictures and video from inside a nest box. Inspired and with our boxes now being used again I decided to construct two new boxes with cameras inside, to allow us to see what actually happens inside the nest box.
During the early planning stages it was decided to built one big box, but separate it into two compartments. The box was built from Plywood, purchased from our local hardware store. Metal tubes protected the front enterance holes for predators. The box was then installed during October 2005.
A pair of Blue Tits used the left hand side of the nest box, but the nest sadly failed with the female being lost just before incubation started.
In August 2006 I decided that the boxes should be separate from each other. Two new boxes were constructed and the old box (2006 season) was moved into our local nature reserve, where for seven seasons (2007-2013) it was used by Great Tits. Sadly in 2015 the box damaged and lost to the weather. A replacement concrete box has been purchased to replace it.
As of 2025
At the end of December 2024, I decided that Bird Boxes 1 & 2 (been up since being built in 2006) needed to be replaced, as the cameras were old, not able to provide infa-red viewing, used phono connections to my PC and DVD recorder and the boxes were beginning to show signs of weather damage.
With the prices of camera bird boxes being more affordable, I decided to purchase two boxes (with cameras included). These boxes come with cameras that can be powered by a transformer or over a network using POE (Power over ethernet). I have gone down the route of using POE and will be installing the cables and switch required soon.
All activity will be recorded to the app the boxes come with, enabling me to watch from my PC, tablets etc and remove the need for a dedicate PC with TV cards etc installed.
Once installed, I will update this Technical page fully with the new setup.
Old Setup – 2006 – 2024
Please click here to view my old tech page. The information on that page is no longer in use and is just archived for reference.