BirdBoxPiCam 2014: News from the Nest

The blue tits arrived at the beginning of March and continued to visit almost every morning for a few weeks.

However, they wasted too much time faffing around and lost their deposit. A pair of new comers arrived on Monday the 24th and took control.

This post provides an update on nesting activities and adds some technical details regarding operation and performance.

BirdBoxPiCam 2014; #1 The Plan

I bought my first Raspberry Pi mid-2012 with the idea of using it with a bird box camera.

 

Unfortunately there were problems with the EzCap video capture module driver, and I have still not been able to get this going.

However, now armed with a PiCam I'm hoping for better luck with my new project.

The [not so] EasyCap for Linux

An EasyCap is a USB device that connects a composite video source (like an "analogue" cctv camera) to a computer.

The name "EasyCap" is not really a product name, because there are so many companies making copies of the original device. In fact one company (ClimaxDigital) got so fed up with the number of bad copies in circulation, that it change its branding to EzCAP, and more recently, dropped the name completely.

So you don't really know what you are getting when you order one of these. Its only when you connect it to your Linux computer and type "lsusb" that you discover what is inside.