Today, we will use a ladder to check our two registered boxes, installed in late Jan or early Feb.
What other devices are folks using in order to not heft a ladder about? GoPro or other cameras on a stick? Endoscopes or other fiber optic devices?
Please let us know your level of success with such devices and what specific ones you prefer.
Thanks!
We have a pair of designs from two of our partners on our website: here's one, and here's the other. Using a GoPro on a pole streaming to a phone is a popular solution not just for kestrel box monitors, but lots of other nest monitors as well. We also know that some folks have gone very low tech by taking their smartphone, starting a video recording, attaching it to a pole, holding it up to the nest opening, and then reviewing the video to see what's inside—an inelegant solution for sure, but it gets the job done.
Hopefully some of our partners chime in with their specific setups and results!
Matthew
AKP Staff
Thank you, Matthew!
I had one accidental solution. I started with a nest box for wood ducks on an old bridge plank for a post, so tall I had to put a ladder in the back of the pickup to reach it. Kestrels homesteaded it the first year and never ever had a wood duck, just kestrel year after year after year. Every few years the old plank from a long ago flood would be rotting off and I'd saw it off and put back in the ground. By the time the 2013 flood took it to Nebraska, it was low enough I could check thenest standing on the ground, and I'm only 5' 4" ; ) Kestrels seem happy to nest in some of my wood duck boxes that are only 6ft off the ground. Could be a solution for some of you taller folks.
Thank you, Rich!