What is it about?
We built a camera trap to film high speed video of hummingbirds feeding. To do this, we separated the triggering mechanism from the camera. This allowed us to use a specialized camera, and also to customize the triggering mechanism to be able to detect super fast and small animals.
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Why is it important?
We think our method is broadly applicable to many camera trapping situations where the limitations of commercial camera traps are problematic. Our solution can be paired with nearly any camera, and with a tremendously flexible assortment of sensors.
Perspectives
Homemade electronics are becoming increasingly cheap and powerful. Thanks to a cottage industry spurred by the Arduino, parts are easy to find, and how-to guides are readily available. As ecologists, we should be looking to take advantage of this favorable situation to build our own research equipment. Customized research equipment furthers research that might not be conducted otherwise, is more cost effective, and can be made without a large time investment.
James Mickley
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bring your own camera to the trap: An inexpensive, versatile, and portable triggering system tested on wild hummingbirds, Ecology and Evolution, May 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.3040.
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