Trail camera set up & usage problems

[tullyhubbert]

I bought a Campark T86 WiFi trail camera (Amazon) with a view to monitoring my flight pond to see what time ducks are arriving (Flight is getting ever later) and my garden bird feeders as something is visiting at nights and eating the dead crows I'd placed nearby (Ineffective attempt at trying to stop crows eating my garden bird food) Whatever is doing it eat through the copper wire I'd hung the crows up with, owl maybe?

However it hasn't worked out well, I get hardly any camera triggers. At the pond (Nightime) I placed the camera on the edge but around 10' of where I would expect the ducks to be. 2 nights in a row no triggers. I then placed it in the pond about 18" above the surface right beside where the ducks should be. I got 5 triggers first night and 15 triggers the following night, there should be many more. There are plenty of ducks on the pond as I've seen them flighting in and they eat half a bucket of grain every night. The attached video was interesting, talk about getting your ducks in line  

I placed the camera as pictured opposite my bird feeders, distance between feeders and camera is around 4m. (Daytime) The garden birds, doves, crows, magpies emptied 3 feeders and I didn't get a single trigger. Sometimes there's as many as 3 or 4 crows hanging off the peanut feeder.

Camera setup as follows. PIR sensor set to high sensitivity, side and front PIR sensors on, 30 seconds between shot times, set to take 2 photos and a 5 second video. New SD card (Correct class) formatted in the camera before use.

Am I asking too much of the camera, could it be my use is inappropriate? From what I've read most users have problems with too many triggers wasting batteries and filling up the memory card, grass and branches moving.  Me, my batteries and card are going to last for years at this rate! 😞 I decided it must have faulty PIR sensors and returned it to Amazon (I did walk checks in test mode and although it did trigger the range was nowhere near the claimed and I'm much bigger than a duck)

Any advice appreciated, does anyone else think the sensors were faulty? Recommendations of a sub £100 WiFi connected camera would be great, Was thinking of a Campark T100 but maybe it's my use case that's inappropriate?

 

Thanks ... John 

Edited December 5, 2021 by tullyhubbert
To change 18 feet to 18 inches

[Mice!]

It could be a dodgy camera, you have taken all the plastic off the lenses and sensors haven't you?

@Walker570 is using campark with great success,  I bought two mini ones a while back, size wise there great, but they eat batteries. 

Can't think why you aren't getting pics from your bird feeders, might be worth putting the camera on a pole facing the other direction,  maybe the sun is affecting things?

The duck video is very funny.

[Walker570]

Yep, I have three CamParks and they are still working fine and easy on batteries. The quality of the photos day and night is very good BUT as with all trail cams check where early morning and evening sun lies, particularly at this time of year when it is low in the sky and point the camera in the opposit direction.   I cut some 18 inch lengths of 3/8th steel rod and welded a nut on the top the same thread as the base of the cameras.  This allows me to to stick these cameras up almost anywhere as long as I can push the rod in the ground..

[powler]

And don't put one in a wood with cattle in there, the nosey beggar's love to take selfie's 😄

[tullyhubbert]

Thanks for the replies all. I returned the T86 convinced the PIR sensors were faulty.

I replaced it with a Campark T100 and set up at the same place the previous camera was getting some pictures of ducks. First night no triggers 😞

Second night (Last night) i moved it from being set looking level across the pond about 18" above the surface to angled slightly forward. I got 32 triggers during the hours of darkness but I'm convinced it should have been many more. There were only 2 triggers the first 2 hours of darkness and I know the ducks were flighting in.

Tonight I've set it in timelapse mode, it should take a picture & 10s video every 10m from 4pm to midnight. I'm trying to determine what time the ducks visit as fighting had been poor the last few years, hopefully this method will be more productive than depending on the PIR sensor triggering.

I'll update again if and when I start to make some sense out of it.

<edit> Obviously I can't change the ducks flight time but I find it interesting and would like to know what my feathered friends get up to at nights

Edited December 13, 2021 by tullyhubbert
More info

[Jim Neal]

All the faffing about you're going through you may as well wrap up warm and sit by the pond with a flask!!

Edited December 13, 2021 by Jim Neal

[harrycatcat1]

19 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

All the faffing about you're going through you may as well wrap up warm and sit by the pond with a flask!!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍👍👍👍

[billytheghillie]

Looks like pilot error.

[tullyhubbert]

On 13/12/2021 at 23:46, Jim Neal said:

All the faffing about you're going through you may as well wrap up warm and sit by the pond with a flask!!

  Sure what else have I to do with my time!

Timelapse mode has been interesting and results are pretty much as expected, what should be flight time has a small number of ducks arriving but between 7-9pm there's plenty enjoying a danger free meal  

[Rob85]

5 hours ago, tullyhubbert said:

  Sure what else have I to do with my time!

Timelapse mode has been interesting and results are pretty much as expected, what should be flight time has a small number of ducks arriving but between 7-9pm there's plenty enjoying a danger free meal  

Have you been on the lookout for any avian flu affected birds? Judging from your name im guessing you live rather close to carryduff where they found a few victims that had flew in

[Walker570]

.... a big chunk of information was deleted by the system.  again!!............................. this camera has now been in use for five years.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Walker570

[arjimlad]

I have the little Campark T20-1, and found that I needed to mount it no more than 3 feet off the ground to get the most shots of wildlife on the ground. The first week I only got humans, but after putting it down lower it began to capture wildlife well enough for my purposes. 

 

 

 

[tullyhubbert]

19 hours ago, Rob85 said:

Have you been on the lookout for any avian flu affected birds? Judging from your name im guessing you live rather close to carryduff where they found a few victims that had flew in

Well spotted, yes I live centrally between Moneyrea, Ballygowan and Carryduff.

On the BBC website I seen there were a couple of confirmed cases on Monlough (Which I shoot but haven't been there since the first morning)

Between 3 of us we've only shot 18 ducks on our flight pond this season and they have all looked healthy, we generally only shoot 20-25 per season (By choice, not because we are terrible shots though I wouldn't deny that!) Shooting ways I spend most of my time picking up pheasants with a bit of pigeon shooting pre and post duck/pheasant season.

We're are you located Rob?

[Rob85]

On 17/12/2021 at 08:50, tullyhubbert said:

Well spotted, yes I live centrally between Moneyrea, Ballygowan and Carryduff.

On the BBC website I seen there were a couple of confirmed cases on Monlough (Which I shoot but haven't been there since the first morning)

Between 3 of us we've only shot 18 ducks on our flight pond this season and they have all looked healthy, we generally only shoot 20-25 per season (By choice, not because we are terrible shots though I wouldn't deny that!) Shooting ways I spend most of my time picking up pheasants with a bit of pigeon shooting pre and post duck/pheasant season.

We're are you located Rob?

Saintfield man myself, I come home along the monlough road a lot to avoid the rush hour traffic, used to shoot in a little farm down the saintfield end of the road until the owner died....made enquiries and the fella that has bought it has sadly put everyone off the ground. Was a great spot, pigeon flighting, ducks, snipe, pheasants.... a lot of the saintfield estate escapees would head that direction (not that i would shoot any of course 🙄) i did a few beats on the saintfield estate back around 2008/9 then after a big fall put withe the game keeper I headed off to ballydugan(sadly is no more) instead.

Are you one of the lucky ones that has permissions in them lovely big barley fields?

[tullyhubbert]

Stop shooting our pheasants, I pick up there lol 😁