Birdhouse Camera Set-up

Last spring, we bought and installed a birdhouse. Pretty soon after, a pair of bluebirds moved in. We had other wildlife cameras around our property and I wanted to figure out how to put a small camera in the birdhouse. It turned out to be pretty easy and I will show you how.

// Please note: You should not mount a nest box on a fence or tree! It makes it an easy target for many predators. I didn’t know that the first time I installed a birdhouse and now I place all houses on a pole with a predator guard. I wrote a whole post about a safe birdhouse set-up. //

Materials you will need

• Birdhouse – I like this bluebird house. You can open it to clean it.
• Camera – We use the Blink Outdoor camera. It is battery-powered and is small enough to fit inside the birdhouse.
• You do need a $30 yearly subscription for this to work optimally though.

How to Install the Birdhouse Camera

This was pretty low-tech. We just put long screws in the top of the birdhouse to have something for the camera to sit on. First, you need to remove the birdhouse roof. Then, drill holes to avoid cracking the cedar. Use the holes to gently screw the screws in. We have two screws on each side and then we cut out a little piece of OSB to help stabilize the camera.

How to view the videos

With the Blink camera, you must have a subscription to keep the recordings. If you don’t have a subscription, then it’s essentially a live-view camera only. It’s $30 per year, which is well worth it to us because it’s a learning experience for us and the kids. And, I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

The Blink app is super easy to use. The home screen shows all of your cameras.

The Recordings tab shows all recent recorded activity and the name of the camera.

Then, you can click on any video to watch it.

Make the birdhouse camera more sustainable with solar

If you have the space, you can convert the power source to solar using a compatible solar panel. I have solar on both of my nesting boxes now. I have both of these below:

Photos from the birdhouse camera

We loved watching the birds, both outside of the house and inside.

Watch this video to see some of the video footage from the Blink birdhouse camera.

Learn more about getting a proper birdhouse set-up.

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