Wildlife trail camera recommendations

em22 · June 2023

Hi
Can anyone recommend a budget friendly wildlife trail camera for use in the garden to capture hedgehogs etc please?
I've looked online but it's a bit of a minefield.
Thank you. 🦔

AnniD · June 2023

I have an Aldi one (Maginon), but l've just had a look and they're not available at the moment. There are some suggestions here, and l know a lot of forum members have them so l'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions.

https://www.gardenersworld.com/product-guides/nature/best-wildlife-cameras/

februarysgirl · June 2023

I've had several budget trail cameras, mainly because of that old saying "you get what you pay for". They lasted 6 months to a year before starting to develop problems. The other issue I found is that in the hedgehog's (and wildlife's in general) most active time of the year, the cameras were eating through batteries every few days and it was costing a fortune. I did try rechargeable batteries but they weren't great. These days I have a couple of wireless Reolinks and although they cost more initially, they only need charging every couple of weeks (if that) which saves a lot of money on batteries. They also have models available that have a solar panel so you wouldn't need to charge it all if the camera is in a sunnier spot.

myclayjungle · June 2023

I have an apeman wildlife camera 30MP 4K infared night vision. I can't post a link I'm afraid. I bought it from amazon 2yrs ago and its still going strong. Admittedly, I only used it every few weeks. I agree that it can chew threw batteries so I buy energiser ultimate lithium- which I'd read have the longest life. I think there is an option to plug it in though- if you have an outside socket.

fidgetbones · June 2023

I have a Bushnell Low glow camera and been using it regularly for three years. The only problem I have is that if it drops to dew point outside, there is a fogging until the heat from the camera burns it off the lens. I use rechargeable batteries.

coccinella · June 2023

I have a Coolife PH700A trail camera. It takes lovely shots and it is easy to use (Youtube videos). It does cane the batteries though, sometimes one day of usage and rechargeables don't work. I am thinking of buying a solar panel for it as the camera was a present and I actually like it.

imintaunton · June 2023

Sorry to be a bit late in adding my comment.

On ebay you can buy ones from about £20 upwards, but to be honest, the cheaper end ones tend to be full of little glitches. The good news about them is that the (usually Chinese) sellers seem to be perfectly happy to give you your money back when things go wrong.

I've had 5 or 6 of those over the past couple of years with varying degrees of success. **(Spoken aside - The one I'm using nowadays is one that I believed had gone wrong but then I found that it was my PC that was playing up instead. The result is that I got my money back and then once I'd got my PC fixed, I found that it works perfectly well)**

I think that the worst thing about them is the crap instructions that are usually a literal translation so the words don't always make much sense!

However, they're not all that bad. My batteries (4 x AA batteries in the camera) last for at least a week and that's with having the camera out from around 9 pm until 6 am every night.

What you get (on these cheaper ones) is a fairly basic selection of pictures and/or videos - and whether to have either and an optional number of number of photos and length of video. The general set-up gives you three photos and a 10 second video but I usually reset it to a 20 second video instead.

The most irritating thing I'm currently finding with mine is that the recent chilly nighttime temperatures have caused the camera problems. It tends to give up when it turns cold - and then comes back when it warms up a bit so I've been getting action until soon after midnight and then losing it until perhaps 4 am. Not every night, I might add - some nights it's fine.

I, by the way, use it in our garden to spot visiting cats and to watch our herd of hedgehogs (we have 6 visiting most nights) plus the occasional oddity - a fox, an owl and once a badger. Lord knows how he got in the garden though!

For an amateur just messing around keeping an eye on the garden at night it's good enough. Not wonderful but...and for free in my case, so I'm not moaning!

And that's what I'd recommend for someone just starting up and just garden-watching - cheap and cheerful to start with because if the results are too boring then giving up won't hurt your pocket.

februarysgirl · June 2023

@imintaunton You have six hedgehogs?! Mine are being very inconsistent this year. Last year I had two every night guaranteed but this year they're a bit meh about my garden. There was a female around a month or so ago but she kept getting harassed by one of the males. Think she decided to go somewhere where she could eat in peace! That being said, I am hoping she comes back with hoglets in tow 🤗

Redwing · June 2023

We bought this one from Naturespy which is on special offer now. They are biologists and the company is non profit and all proceeds go into conservation. They pride themselves on only selling decent cameras. Even if you don't buy from them they have a great website for explaining about the different cameras and what they can do. The model we bought we've had for about 3 months, so far so good. It takes 8 batteries and so far we haven't needed to replace them. I don't know how much you want to spend and at £140 it isn't particularly cheap but it does the job well. We still haven't worked out how to do everything it can do but it's not too difficult for us to use. Instructions are pretty good.

https://shop.naturespy.org/products/browning-recon-force-edge-wildlife-camera-btc-7e?_ga=2.131285775.1001925267.1686152838-1688964862.1686152838&_gl=1*r3wxb6*_ga*MTY4ODk2NDg2Mi4xNjg2MTUyODM4*_ga_Y3HHLS2N1V*MTY4NjE1MjgzOC4xLjAuMTY4NjE1MjgzOC42MC4wLjA.

imintaunton · June 2023

februarysgirl said:

@imintaunton You have six hedgehogs?!

Yep - most nights, definitely.

Mind you, we don't "have" the hedgehogs - they come and go and apparently travel widely from place to place each night so we're lucky that they deign to visit our garden.

The other night none came to scoff at our offerings but just half an hour ago (9.30 pm) we'd seen three already when it wasn't even dark.

But usually we do get 6, including one with wobbly hedgehog syndrome, otherwise known as progressive paresis/paralysis, poor thing.

We start to see them as soon as it starts to get dark and they're around until about 4.30, it seems. We can recognise at least three of them by colour or size - and by its wonky walk and they come in all sizes. We've yet to see any babies though but I guess they'll be along eventually.

We feed them on cat food nowadays. We did start to buy hedgehog food but with the amount they eat we soon gave up that expensive idea. The cat food we feed them is what our cats don't like from the selection in the boxes, so that doesn't cost us any extra. We now put out three bowls of food. Usually the hogs eat the lot but it seems that if they don't then it feeds plenty of other animals and birds.

Our garden is very overgrown because the previous people were ancient and infirm and unable to do anything much, so there must be plenty of nice hiding places for the hogs. And judging by how soon after we put the food out that they start to appear, there must be at least a few that do live here as opposed to just visiting us.

And they're a good and easy subject for the camera too!

Slow-worm · June 2023

You lot are a bad influence, lol, I was only toying with the idea of a night cam recently. I'll have to see what's on offer - £140 isn't bad for a camera.
I think I'd just have mice endlessly flitting about, and riveting slug antics, I've seen no evidence of hogs or anything else this year, nor my frogs. 😕

Wildlife trail camera recommendations

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