birdhouse cam

[DrossStudios]

The other day I noticed one of the [delapidated] birdhouses in my backyard had a pair of sparrows flitting in and out of it, obviously working on building their nest inside, and I got the idea to build a "trail cam" of sorts inside it to watch the babies hatch and grow.
Before I get started on such a project, however, I have some beginner questions:

• Is it possible to directly hook up a Pi Cam to a Pico
• Should I use a Zero rather than a Pico?
• I'm flexible on what I finally choose for a power source (battery, PiJuice, PoE), I just need something where obtaining the pictures and/or replacing batteries is the least disturbing to the sparrow-family - suggestions?

My preliminary plan is to use an Ethernet-for-pi-pico board, a PoE hat, Pi Cam, and Pi Pico with an ethernet cable run from my house in order to power, monitor, and generally "use" the device. For weatherproofing, I'll build a weather-resistant box to contain the bulk of the build and sealants/gravity to keep rain/snow/hail from entering where the ethernet or cam cables exit. The sparrows are already established inside the birdhouse; otherwise, I would build the entire thing inside a birdhouse and weather-seal that; instead this year I'll be installing it on the exterior, somehow (exact method TBD). With the above build, I would use the camera's IP address on my home network to access the live feed and/or create a machine-learning script that fetches and saves pictures with a certain amount of change from the previous stills.

In terms of my background, I've been building PC's for a few years now, so plug-and-play hardware is obviously my preferred route, but having been a military engineer the prospect of being handed a pile of raw components, and turning them into a functional product doesn't scare me; in fact, the vast swath of skillsets I've been exposed to has boosted my innate try-anything-once curiosity (for example, if a Pi Cam can be hooked up on a Pico and used to capture stills, but it takes a lot of work, that doesn't bother me - I would choose alternate options because they're cheaper; easier would be a bonus factor, not a deciding one). I currently daily-drive Windows, although I'm slowly transitioning my household to various Linux distro's; CLI and script-writing are becoming increasingly comfortable for me.

Overall Goal: I'm more concerned about what would produce the least expensive-in-materials/lowest-disturbance-to-wildlife camera than what's the easiest to construct, and I'm looking for tips/suggestions on how to do that. Lessons learned from this first build will give me an idea if/how to build a better "Mark II" next winter in anticipation of Spring '24. From use-cases I've seen on YouTube, I don't anticipate getting a smooth video live feed unless I use at least an RPi 4B/CM4, so for now, I'm just wanting still pictures instead of video.

[ejolson]

The other day I noticed one of the [delapidated] birdhouses in my backyard had a pair of sparrows flitting in and out of it, obviously working on building their nest inside, and I got the idea to build a "trail cam" of sorts inside it to watch the babies hatch and grow.
Before I get started on such a project, however, I have some beginner questions:

• Is it possible to directly hook up a Pi Cam to a Pico
• Should I use a Zero rather than a Pico?
• I'm flexible on what I finally choose for a power source (battery, PiJuice, PoE), I just need something where obtaining the pictures and/or replacing batteries is the least disturbing to the sparrow-family - suggestions?

My preliminary plan is to use an Ethernet-for-pi-pico board, a PoE hat, Pi Cam, and Pi Pico with an ethernet cable run from my house in order to power, monitor, and generally "use" the device. For weatherproofing, I'll build a weather-resistant box to contain the bulk of the build and sealants/gravity to keep rain/snow/hail from entering where the ethernet or cam cables exit. The sparrows are already established inside the birdhouse; otherwise, I would build the entire thing inside a birdhouse and weather-seal that; instead this year I'll be installing it on the exterior, somehow (exact method TBD). With the above build, I would use the camera's IP address on my home network to access the live feed and/or create a machine-learning script that fetches and saves pictures with a certain amount of change from the previous stills.

In terms of my background, I've been building PC's for a few years now, so plug-and-play hardware is obviously my preferred route, but having been a military engineer the prospect of being handed a pile of raw components, and turning them into a functional product doesn't scare me; in fact, the vast swath of skillsets I've been exposed to has boosted my innate try-anything-once curiosity (for example, if a Pi Cam can be hooked up on a Pico and used to capture stills, but it takes a lot of work, that doesn't bother me - I would choose alternate options because they're cheaper; easier would be a bonus factor, not a deciding one). I currently daily-drive Windows, although I'm slowly transitioning my household to various Linux distro's; CLI and script-writing are becoming increasingly comfortable for me.

Overall Goal: I'm more concerned about what would produce the least expensive-in-materials/lowest-disturbance-to-wildlife camera than what's the easiest to construct, and I'm looking for tips/suggestions on how to do that. Lessons learned from this first build will give me an idea if/how to build a better "Mark II" next winter in anticipation of Spring '24. From use-cases I've seen on YouTube, I don't anticipate getting a smooth video live feed unless I use at least an RPi 4B/CM4, so for now, I'm just wanting still pictures instead of video.

I think you need at least a Pi Zero rather than a Pico.

[CharlyDelta]

I have many nesting boxes with cameras and I can say that a Zero W does the job even though I have some with PI 4's... For the cameras, they are Versiont 2 infrared and the lights, white and infrared dels Bright Pi (the birds we are interested in do not see the infrared which is less disturbing for the birds). These systems are all powered by mains power but with a Zero W, a good battery system can do the job.
For the interface, it is Rpi Cam Web Interface. You can refer to the links below for more information.

What is interesting is to see the activity in the nesting box. What Rpi Cam Web Interface does... as soon as there is movement, a video recording starts and ends when it is quiet.... customizable, of course!

[redvli]

As mentioned already, a Pi0 can do the job if it is about smooth video. It is all about using the hardware (VC4/VPU) video encoder. I have used a Pi0 for getting 1080p30 videostream of about 6Mps. You need stable IP/network connection. I use PoE mostly, WiFi is sometimes unreliable and I don't want to climb in a tree or so more than needed.
If you just want a (small) picture every now and then, then a micro controller should be OK. I don't know about PICO, but ESP-CAM seems to work.

[rpdom]

Use a Zero or Zero 2W with a Pi cam. I've been (putting off) working on a project to install two Zeroes in a birdbox, one with normal camera, one with NoIR, some IR LEDs and a i2s microphone. The Zeroes would be connected via USB to a 3B+ or 4B which would run Motion and capture the videos.

Currently I've got an old IR camera in the box with the composite output going to a USB video adaptor on a Pi 3B+ running motion. The camera is getting a bit tired, as it's over 10 years old now. I really must get that project finished for next year (I keep saying that).

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