Trail Cam Photography

I'm often asked how I get to know the subjects in my paintings so well and the answer is that I spend a lot of time watching them. To help me with this, a few years ago I began using a Bushnell trail camera and I've found it a really useful research tool.

At the moment I have one trained on a buzzard feeding station that I set up here in Thixendale. I find it particularly useful for recording the times that the buzzards fly in to feed so that I can learn their routines when I am not there and then I can be ready to photograph them at the times I know it is likely that they are going to come. Most wild creatures are habitual and tend to feed at the same times every day, so knowing this information can save me hours I would have otherwise spent in a hide waiting for a creature to arrive. The above picture was taken with a  Canon 1D Mark 4 using a 500 F4 lens from my hide.

I've also captured some hilarious moments on my Bushnell trail cam that I might have otherwise missed, like this group of partridges rubbernecking the buzzard as it tore open its prey.

And I once discovered a wonderful 'wildlife bridge' over a stream after leaving my Bushnell trail cam on for a few days.

I had trained the Bushnell onto the log because I had been watching a badger sett nearby and wondered if the badgers used the log to cross the stream. But it turned out that the bridge was a busy thoroughfare for all the local wildlife and I also captured a fox, pheasant and even a woodmouse using it too!

With the information from my Bushnell I could be fairly certain what time a badger was likely to cross. Having said that, I didn't take the above picture from my hide, but instead used an SLR camera that I adapted to take pictures remotely by attaching a domestic security sensor to it.

I fixed a Puma wire-free movement sensor, designed to trigger security lights outside people's homes, to a Canon 7D 17-14mm lens and then taped insulation across part of the sensor to limit the field of view to capture the above shot of a badger crossing remotely.

There are infrared remote triggers on the market that let your subject fire the shutter in this way, but I have found that most of these involve lining up a transmitter and a receiver with perfect precision - something that is very difficult out in the field where you are dealing with uneven ground.
Often too, even when I do get the infrared beam to work, it appears in the final shot alongside my wildlife subject.

So I find that my personal rig up using a combination of a Bushnell and a Puma sensor works better!

Now that I am using these remote capture devices more and more for my research work, I was excited when this week Bushnell got in touch with me to let me know that they are holding a competition for the best UK captures on a trail cam.

Up for grabs are prizes totalling £2,400 so it's well worth entering!!

Entries need to go to www.natureviewcam.co.uk before December 31st.