Springwatch cameras

For more than a decade the BBC's Springwatch has run for three weeks around the end of May, following the seasonal change in British wildlife, and its most distinctive feature has always been the live cameras streamed online every day. It is the single biggest reason members of the public start asking about nest box cameras, and Handykam wrote this page because every spring brought the same question: can I get pictures like that?

What the broadcast rigs actually are

The honest answer is that programme cameras are not equipment you can buy. Live wildlife broadcasting uses a mixture of full broadcast cameras and heavily modified — home-brew, essentially — units built for one specific shot: a particular hole in a particular tree, at a particular distance, with a particular problem to solve. They are not off-the-shelf. Each one typically comes with its own dedicated lighting rig, its own cable run, and a rigger who put it there weeks in advance.

Beyond the hardware there is the part nobody sees: an operation that can watch dozens of feeds continuously and pick the moment when something happens. A great deal of what makes broadcast wildlife footage look effortless is simply many camera-hours and someone watching all of them.

What a garden camera can honestly achieve

Quite a lot, and considerably more than it could when the programme started. A good modern network camera in a well-sited box, at a fraction of the cost, produces sharp colour footage, clean infra-red night vision and usable audio. The gap between a domestic nest box camera and a broadcast feed is much narrower than it was in 2005.

What still separates them is not resolution. It is:

• Lighting. Broadcast rigs light the scene deliberately. A box camera relies on its own infra-red ring, which is even, close and flat.
• Placement. Programme cameras are positioned by people who do this professionally, often weeks ahead, at sites chosen because something is already happening there.
• Patience. The clips you see are the distillate of an enormous amount of footage.

Of those three, the second and third are free. Siting the box well and leaving the camera running are what actually improve a garden feed.

Getting a better picture at home

• Site the box properly first. Out of direct sun, sheltered from driving rain, with a clear approach, and put up outside the breeding season. The BTO's nest box guidance covers this.
• Focus at the working distance — the height the nest will build up to, not the empty floor.
• Keep the lens clear. Nothing within a few centimetres, and no surface for the infra-red to bounce off.
• Record on motion, and review rather than watch. Everything interesting happens while you are elsewhere.
• Leave it up all year. Boxes are used for roosting outside the breeding season too, and winter footage is a season most people never look at.
• Then leave the birds alone. Nesting birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

What Handykam could and could not supply

Handykam had no connection with the programme, and this page never claimed one — it existed because the same question arrived every spring and deserved an honest answer. The company built and supplied wildlife cameras for gardens, schools, monitoring work and public displays, and its own pitch was reasonable rather than extravagant: it could not sell you a broadcast rig, but it could supply network cameras that got closer to that look than most people expected for the money.

Watching, and joining in

If a nest box camera makes you want to do more than watch, the natural next step is recording what you see. The BTO Nest Record Scheme turns box observations into long-run data on breeding success, and Garden BirdWatch does the same for garden bird numbers. The RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch each January is the easiest possible entry point, and your local Wildlife Trust will have reserves with cameras of their own.

Related pages: World wildlife webcams · FAQ: WIFI IP camera · Education