Behind the scenes: building and installing the Brynau Farm barn owl nest box cam

We are here at Brynau Farm in South Wales. We've been asked to install nest boxes for barn owls at two locations on the reserve. And we're putting cameras inside them and then connecting them up to the internet to do live streaming. Barn owls stay in their nest boxes for quite a long time, they take about six weeks to develop. So, there's quite a long period that we'd be able to watch them. So, basically we're just going to watch the barn owl family raise their brood.

So, for live streaming you need broadband connectivity. The teresterial broadband is not very good here so we're going to install dedicated 4G broadband which is going to point down and pick up the signal from masts down in Neath over there. And then the live cameras can stream out through the 4G connection.

So, we design nest boxes specifically for cameras. They are kinda modified boxes that are used for conservation. In this case they are based on a Barn Owl Trust design. They are quite deep so the birds don't come out prematurely. And then we tend to put a ramp inside them so that the camera can get pushed away and get a good image of the birds breeding and it kinda manages them over to one side.

 So, that's then going to connect to the 4G and it will get pushed out to YouTube live. And everyone will be able to see it on the internet. To be fair, compared with a lot of other installations we do this has been quite easy so far. It's dry and there's power in the barns, so this is the kinda job I like.

Yep that works.