UKC

I'm currently filming a heron in our garden, with a view to coming up with a foolproof way to stop him eating every last fish and bit of wildlife in the ponds.

I'm currently using a cheap low res video camera, but having captured a few other interesting bits of animal behaviour I quite fancy a decent trail camera.

Any recommendations, as reading the reviews on Amazon and the like has left me even more confused over what's good or bad.

Thanks in advance.

In reply to Ridge:

Hi,

I have done quite a bit of research on these as there are hundreds available. In the end I thought this to be the best:

http://www.sure24.co.uk/ltl-acorn-ltl6210a-hd-video-trail-camera-12-mp-940-...

as it is HD, has loop recording and optional solar panels as well as some other advantages over more expensive ones.

That said I was not impressed by the image quality of any of them. I expect they may all have the same sensor and basic electronics at the core of them.

In reply to ali_colquhoun:

Thanks Ali. I'm tending to think the same, that it's the same Chinese innards in boxes of varying designs. I don't made paying for something with decent imagery, (like the BBC use), but it's a bit of a gamble buying online. Seems odd that mobile phone cameras shoot really good images now, but the wildlife stuff is lagging well behind.

In reply to Ridge:

This:
youtube.com/watch?v=FQ0lguIMWDU&


Was shot with this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bushnell-8MP-Trophy-Trail-Camera/dp/B004MC0P8O

The camera has been superseded but I thought it was great (sadly some c... err.. naught person nicked mine despite it being ccained and padlocked to a tree in a pretty obscure location).

In reply to Cobbler:

Thanks Neil

In reply to Ridge:

Can't help with the camera but our quick and cheap solution to the heron problem was a length of plastic pipe in the bottom of the pond that the fish could hide in. Think we used something like like black 110mm soil stack pipe and cut a couple of lengths of about 24 inches long.

In reply to Ridge:

Had heron problems myself. One way I solved the issue was to put a net over the pond.

However I did read about another method, which I have not tried, was to put a mirror up. Its supposed to spook the heron into thinking that they are not alone and then fly away.

Not tried it myself though.