Side-View, Raspberry-Pi powered bird counting bird box

As I mentioned in an earlierpost, I've been looking to setup a small bird nesting box with camera feed that can be viewed from any internet-enabled device (PC, tablet, phone).  While there are plenty of solutions out there to directly connect an analogue camera to a TV, there are no affordable compact off the shelf 'stream-across-the-web' (or home network options).  

My 'Mark I' box is based on the side view 'Odd-Box' design, variants of which are available commercially from various UK retailers.  This design is interesting as it gives a 'side-on' perspective, rather than the usual 'top-down' view from the traditional nest box with camera at the top.  I've added an entrance counter which should allow me to monitor coming & goings from the box.   

My side-view, Raspberry-Pi powered bird counting nest box

As described in an earlier post, I've taken advantage of the Raspberry Pi's flexibility to connect to a variety of devices, and have hooked it up to a webcam to stream live footage of an owl nesting box, which  is currently intermittently occupied by squirrels.

  
Bird Activity Counter

I've also incorporated two entrance hole infra-red beams that when used together should be able to detect entry and exit from the box.  This is based on the bird box project in Andrew Robinson and Mike Cook's Raspberry Pi projects book:

The final chapter ' Chapter 17 - The Techno-Bird Box, a Wildlife Monitor' describes a method of utilising the PiFace interface board with the Raspberry Pi to record entry and exits to the box.  This YouTube video shows the sort of thing that is possible.
Update May  4 2014:  Python scripts for this aspect of the project are described in this post

   

Box Construction

The wiring, IR illuminators and detectors are housed in the multi-layer plywood section on the LHS of this picture.

All wiring is goes via a terminal block to the PiFace interface board + Raspberry Pi.  The box is powered via power over ethernet (PoE) using a TP-LinkTL-POE200 PoE kit.  The camera is a Microsoft Lifecam cinema.   The box is linked into my home network, and can be viewed from any connected device as a motion jpeg stream.

Video streaming

The LifeCam is capable of 1280x720 video, but unfortunately the viewing angle is too wide, and there's a gain in frame rate if I drop it to 800x600.  At this resolution I can also zoom in, which isn't possible at the higher resolution using the LifeCam.  I'm using mjpeg_streamer to stream the video across my network, and can get a framerate approaching 20fps, but limit it to approx 12fps as this is still perfectly adequate.

View from each end of the box (not web-cam view)

I haven't gone for artificial light in the box, and have instead cut a window into the box lid and put a sheet of transparent acrylic over the lid.  This seems to give plenty of natural light, and we'll see if the skylight puts them off or not. 

For a future 'Mark II' box, I'm planning to use the Raspberry Pi camera board as its a good resolution, cheap and much more compact.

Motion detection

The Raspberry Pi is essentially a small computer running Raspbian, a version of Linux.  This is an open-source operating system that benefits from a wide community of open-source software (read = free).  I'm currently taking advantage of the Lifecam's facility to stream mjpeg natively, which puts very little load on the Pi.  Optionally, you can run a program called 'motion' which analyses a video stream for movement configured to record any detected activity.  I haven't used this, as a while ago I setup a PC running iCode's iCatcher Console software which does the same thing.  This is windows based, commercial software, which operates on a per-camera licensing basis, so there is a per-camera cost involved. I have maxed-out my available iCatcher per-camera licences at the moment, so may look at using motion for the next nest box / feeder / whatever build.  Using this software, I can capture any activity and export to a video file, for example this week has seen plenty of squirrel mating in my Owl nest box.

If you exclude the motion detection (which can be setup for free on the Pi), the cost for this build would be approx £100, which when you compare to how much the cost of a TV-only analogue kit would cost is very favourable.  The 'downside' is that you have to build & program this yourself, but there are plenty of guides out there to help with that.

Mounting

Since we're not dealing with a battery or solar powered box, this had to be put up near a network point and power.  The advantage of a PoE setup is that I can run an ethernet cable a long distance from the house and send power and a data signal through it.  The TP-Link kit I've used allows a step down to either 12, 9 or 5V at the destination, so I've assumed that it must send a higher voltage down the wire.  My assumption is that since the step down occurs at the destination, there's no need to fiddle about with voltage drops if you planned to send 5V from the power source. 

To keep it simple, I'm mounting this one on the side of the house, and running ethernet cable through the wall.  My other similarly setup owl-come-squirrel box is set up exactly the same way, and is a good 150ft from the house.

This is a view from the lifecam camera with the box outside:

View from Bird box camera at 800x600 resolution

My main concern is that the electronics compartment gets a little warm, and I don't want to kill the Pi... hopefully being on North-East facing wall, it shouldn't get too hot.  The next version will incorporate some better ventilation.

I hope that I haven't left it too late putting this nest box up, but last season we have great tits nesting in May, so I'm ever hopeful!