So, here is what I did. It’s not necessarily what you should do. I did this all in a rush in the hope that Pandora Tit wouldn’t spot me. The best way to describe it is bodged.

The window had to be opaque, so I used what I had to hand, which was two chinese takeaway containers, sandwiching a single ply of tissue. I cut the pieces to shape, around an indentation that they have, added the tissue, and glued the whole thing together, like a sandwich with a glue gun.

From there I had grand plans to cut a hole, with a grove in order to properly install the window. This was way to tricky with the tools that I had, so instead, I cut a hole slightly larger than the indentation, and gluegunned the window over it.

Sorted. Job done. I put it back on the wall and marvelled at the colour pictures. I say marvelled, grimaced is probably more accurate. It’s not exactly technicolour. As you can see I’ve poked through the end of an AV lead, with red, yellow and white connectors, and it’s all a world of grey. Perhaps the tits will look better? At least it’s a slight improvement, and should at least increase the shutter speed of the camera.

Now, all I need is a nest.

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Over those two years, the camera has been outside in the bird box, unused, so I wasn’t sure if it would work. I leant out of the window where the box is located, plugged the camera into the mains, set up the receiver box, and – nothing.

I did lots of fiddling inside, and thought that perhaps the problem was with the camera, maybe the power connector had got dirty or rusty? So, I leant out of the window, lifted the box off, and brought it inside… With hindsight I should’ve checked to see if it was empty first.

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It turns out that I had a blue tit using the box as a roost, and I had just woken him up. So, an hour of chasing a blue tit around my spare room ensued. Well, I didn’t chase it, I just opened the window, watched and hoped it would fly out of it. No chance. My wife worked out that he was attracted to the light, so she held a torch (near my head) and pointed it at the window, before switching the light off.

Big mistake. It’s amazing how a blue tit can look like an eagle when it’s flying at your face in the near dark.

Plan b – place the torch on the windowsill worked like a charm.

24 hours later, I reconnected the camera, it’s working flawlessly and my blue tit (named Pandora by my wife) is back in there and asleep. I’m disappointed that the image is black and white though. Perhaps I should install a window and let in some colour…

Firstly, no webcam was available which was small enough to fit in a bird box – only wireless av ‘spy’ cameras. Secondly, a bird box with built in camera cost way more than I’m willing to spend.

The lack of the most obvious technology struck me as odd. I had assumed that most cameras would be USB, but they weren’t, they were AV and even odder – wireless. These wireless cameras would do what I wanted, and they were cheap. I selected one from ebay which had IR capability and illumination, and adjustable focus as the subject was to be so close to the lens. Ebay was the obvious source, and I ended up with this;

Click for ebay link

It came with a wireless receiver, power supplies, and a 9v battery link for the camera. I rejected this in favour of mains power, as I didn’t want to disturb birds when changing the batteries. All that was missing was the ability to connect via USB. But that was easily fixed by using a EasyCap, again very cheap and readily available from ebay.

A word of advice about the EasyCap – it defaults to “Digital TV” as its input, which is a bit rubbish, as it doesn’t have a digital receiver. When trying to use it, be sure to go to options and select “Composite AV”.

Now all I needed was a bird box, and to install the camera. A quick trip to B&Q and I had a box for just £5. Then installation was simply a case of drilling a hole for the power lead, and another for the aerial (the vertical wire in the photo above). Then I used a glue gun to hold the camera in place.

Everything was setup, and all I needed now, was a willing bird. This was my first failure…