We have five feeder station cameras including the mealworm feeder camera. All of the cameras are a C-Mount Color Video Camera with various lens attached to each camera. The cameras are placed in heated weatherproof enclosures which can swivel up, down and side to side. Both the enclosures and cameras were purchased from www.supercircuits.com.
UPDATE: As of December, 2000 we have installed a new webcam onto the multi-feeder station. The camera is a close-up shot of the feeders. It is situated about 2 feet away from the seed and suet feeders and mounted on one of the cedar poles. Upon laying the video cables for the other webcams we decided to pull an extra cable for a future webcam. This extra cable made it easy to install the up-close webcam. We obtained AC power from the outlet on the the cedar post which gives power to the heated bird bath as well.
The installation process for these cameras was a long one. Eventually, we hired UCR electricians to help install the cameras during our weather station installation process. Since the original installation, we have replaced some of the flex-conduit to the feeder cameras with Liquid-Tight non-metallic conduit which gives the camera enclosures more flexibility to move up and down.
Basically, each camera enclosure was positioned and mounted with lag bolts in the appropriate place for a good view of the ground feeding birds, the seed feeders, the bird bath and the mealworm feeder. All of these cameras and enclosures are attached to the beams and siding of the Trailfinders Lodge Laboratory.
The electricians used telephone type wire to power each camera and heated camera enclosure. They used coaxial cable for the video transmission. All of the power wire comes into the laboratory which is spliced with 12VDC transformers and plugged into a surge protector within the laboratory.
As of June, 2001, we have most of our video cameras plugged into an Axis Video Server. AXIS 2400 Network Video Server delivers high-quality, Motion-JPEG images at a rate of up to 30 frames per second. It provides a comprehensive single-box solution for video transmission over any data network including, local, wide-area networks and even over the Internet. Connecting directly to 10/100 Mbps Ethernet networks, it enables any computer to view live video images from hundreds of video servers -- without the hassles normally associated with digital video transmission. The AXIS 2400 can control up to four cameras, including two pan/tilt/zoom cameras.
We found that the heater within the camera enclosure was not necessary, even in the winter when temperatures were below freezing so we unplugged each camera enclosure heater to save on energy consumption.
Our grand multi-feeder station was built by expert carpenter Ken Hedman and assistant, Sheri Lubin. The blackboard behind the feeder helps increase the amount of pictures per minute on our streaming video cameras. The solid background color not only decreases the amount of pixels for the cameras to process it also helps to contrast the colors of the birds. This solid color background was a suggestion from one of our website viewers. Thank you!
