See what’s going on in your garden, day or night!
Want to see what your garden critters are getting up to? Wildlife cameras are increasingly clever and compact, affording us a great view of garden goings-on. You could see eggs hatching and baby birds being raised by hectic parents via a nestbox cam. Discover who’s visiting your garden at night (and which neighbourhood cat is the poop culprit!) with a garden or trail cam. Or, if you have hedgehogs visiting your outside space, how about a hog-house cam to watch the snuffly shenanigans? So if you fancy indulging your inner Attenborough, here’s all you need to know before you buy.
MOTION ACTIVATED
Trail and garden cams can be positioned anywhere in your garden. Most are unobtrusive and remain on stand-by mode until triggered when something passes in front of the passive infrared (PIR) sensor. The best cameras have multiple PIR sensors at different angles to capture movement across a wider field of view (FOV). They take colour images in daylight and the majority switch to black and white images after dark, using infrared light that won’t scare animals. When triggered, they capture a few still images, moving video images or both, which are saved to an SD memory card – the same kind found in most digital cameras – while wifi-enabled models also allow you to view the action live.
Most trail cams are operated by batteries and these should last well because the camera is only active for a few seconds at a time. Some models have solar panels to recharge the batteries, while some larger garden cams need mains electricity.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
First of all, double-check the camera has an IP rating of 55, making it fit for outdoor use. And if the camera is wifi enabled, that your signal is strong enough in the garden. Camera quality is measured in megapixels and the higher the number, the better the image quality. Field of view (FOV) is the area the camera covers, usually measured in degrees. A larger FOV captures a wider area, but objects look smaller, whereas a smaller FOV captures less, but in better definition.
Trigger time and shutter speed measure how long it takes the PIR sensor to detect a moving object and for the camera to activate; the shorter the trigger time, the better the camera, and it’ll capture even fast-moving subjects.
Recovery time measures how long it takes the camera to be ready to shoot again. This is especially important if the camera can shoot video and images at the same time; a long recovery time means the camera will take a few seconds to recover after taking an image before recording the video, by which time the subject may have moved on.
For the majority of models, you’ll need to buy the SD card separately. How many images and how much video you can store on a SD card is determined by its memory capacity, measured in g
