Raspberry Pi nest cameras: An affordable tool for remote behavioral and conservation monitoring of bird nests

Abstract

1. Bespoke (custom-built) Raspberry Pi cameras are increasingly popular research tools in the fields of behavioral ecology and conservation, because of their comparative flexibility in programmable settings, ability to be paired with other sensors, and because they are typically cheaper than commercially built models.2. Here, we describe a novel, Raspberry Pi-based camera system that is fully portable and yet weatherproof-especially to humidity and salt spray. The camera was paired with a passive infrared sensor, to create a movement-triggered camera capable of recording videos over a 24-hr period. We describe an example deployment involving "retro-fitting" these cameras into artificial nest boxes on Praia Islet, Azores archipelago, Portugal, to monitor the behaviors and interspecific interactions of two sympatric species of storm-petrel (Monteiro's storm-petrel Hydrobates monteiroi and Madeiran storm-petrel Hydrobates castro) during their respective breeding seasons.3. Of the 138 deployments, 70% of all deployments were deemed to be "Successful" (Successful was defined as continuous footage being recorded for more than one hour without an interruption), which equated to 87% of the individual 30-s videos.The bespoke cameras proved to be easily portable between 54 different nests and reasonably weatherproof (~14% of deployments classed as "Partial" or "Failure" deployments were specifically due to the weather/humidity), and we make further trouble-shooting suggestions to mitigate additional weather-related failures.4. Here, we have shown that this system is fully portable and capable of coping with salt spray and humidity, and consequently, the camera-build methods and scripts could be applied easily to many different species that also utilize cavities, burrows, and artificial nests, and can potentially be adapted for other wildlife monitoring situations to provide novel insights into species-specific daily cycles of behaviors and interspecies interactions.

The use of trail cameras to monitor species inhabiting artificial nest boxes

“…Second, trail cameras could be easily swapped between boxes, which is especially important in studies with high numbers of boxes involved and/or when box occupation pattern changes dynamically. Finally, trail cameras could be easily hidden inside the nest box with no additional equipment left visible outside (compare to Hereward et al, 2021).…”

“…In bird studies, collecting data on the timing of nest building, egg laying, hatching, and fledging requires that researchers frequently monitor nests (summarized in Wang & Beissinger, 2011). Technical solutions have been developed to reduce field time (reviewed by Smith et al, 2015); photo and video technologies provide direct information about bird behavior inside nest boxes (e.g., Bambini et al, 2018; Hereward et al, 2021; Prinz et al, 2016; Zárybnická et al, 2016). Contemporary photography and real‐time recording systems have features appropriate for cavities, like miniature size, infrared sensitivity, movement‐induced trigger (Hereward et al, 2021; Prinz et al, 2016; Zárybnická et al, 2016).…”

“…Technical solutions have been developed to reduce field time (reviewed by Smith et al, 2015); photo and video technologies provide direct information about bird behavior inside nest boxes (e.g., Bambini et al, 2018; Hereward et al, 2021; Prinz et al, 2016; Zárybnická et al, 2016). Contemporary photography and real‐time recording systems have features appropriate for cavities, like miniature size, infrared sensitivity, movement‐induced trigger (Hereward et al, 2021; Prinz et al, 2016; Zárybnická et al, 2016). Despite these advantages, relatively few studies employ camera systems and often have small sample sizes, rarely exceeding 10 boxes (Haftorn, 1996; Cooper et al, 2009; Wang & Weathers, 2009; Ospina et al, 2015; Zárybnická et al, 2016, but see Bambini et al, 2018 for the exception).…”

“…However, such solutions have many technical limitations and are suitable for monitoring a single garden nest box rather than large‐scale field research (Prinz et al, 2016). On the other hand, setting up nest‐monitoring systems requires electronic engineering and programming skills necessary to assemble and configure all components needed (e.g., lighting, cameras, data storage, triggering system, see Hereward et al, 2021; Prinz et al, 2016; Zárybnická et al, 2016). An additional problem with user‐built and commercial systems is their relatively high cost (Prinz et al, 2016; Zárybnická et al, 2016) as proper experimental design usually requires monitoring >100 nests.…”

Quantifying the Foodscape for Stream‐Dwelling Cutthroat Trout Reveals Spatial and Temporal Ranges of Resource Exploitation and Energy Intake

“…The trends toward miniaturization, affordability, and open-source custom control of video recording technology offer promising avenues for future studies of animal behavior and activity for which long-term observer presence is logistically untenable or would disturb the focal species. In the future, many different devices using lowcost, open-source hardware and software can be imagined and developed by researchers to facilitate when, where, and how frequently data can be collected (Greenville and Emery 2016;Hereward et al 2021).…”