A video surveillance system for monitoring raptor nests in a temperate rainforest environment

摘要

Remote photography has been used increasingly to record behavior of birds at their nests (McQuilllen and Brewer 2000). Recent advances with time-lapse video recording systems have made remote videography an ideal technique for recording avian behavior (Booms and Fuller 2003c). If the species of interest is sensitive to disturbance, cameras can be placed so that recording equipment and the power source are well away from the nest (Kristan et al. 1996, Delaney et al. 1998, Booms and Fuller 2003b). By using remote videography to record nesting behavior, some of the same information available by direct observation is obtained without considerable observer time spent at each nest (Poole and Boag 1988, Rosenberg and Cooper 1990). Videotape is analyzed later to extract desired information, and the researcher can view the permanent video record of nest behavior as many times as necessary to quantify the behavior.