Great discussion! Pet (and other 'home') cams are an interesting option as @antonab mentioned. I've been testing one at home that physically tracks moving objects (and does a pretty good job of it), connects to my home network and can be live previewed, all for AUD69 (I bought it on special. Normal retail is AUD80): 

On the Wifi front, and a bit of a tangent, has anyone done any work using 'HaLow' (see below for example) as it seems like an interesting way to extend Wifi networks?

Cool thread!

I will be testing Reolink Wi-Fi cameras in combination with solar powered TP-Link long range Wi-Fi antennas/repeaters later this field season for monitoring arctic fox dens at our remote off grid site in Greenland. The long range Wi-Fi antennas are rather power hungry but with sufficient solar panel and battery capacity I am hopeful it will work. 
I am looking forward to explore the links and hints above after the field season. 
Cheers,

Hi Ann,

The best thing to do is contact Nic and Hannes directly: 

https://wildeyeconservation.org/contact-us/

They can provide you with an overview of the software and answer any questions you have. I've heard good things from a couple of others who have tried out TrapTagger.

Best,

Matt

Wow, I'd not come across the Kilocam before. What a cool piece of kit! Not remotely helpful to your question sorry (I honestly don't know of a cheaper, better option anyway), but could be the basis of a very cheap, time-lapse camera-collar...

Hi Meredith

We used some cheap Browning trail cams to record grey seal behaviour on the Farne Islands over the last autumn as a timelapse. We recorded an image every 1 min during the pupping season, which you probably don't need not need to record glacial melt, and they performed brilliantly. The batteries (8 x Lithium AA) lasted the whole of the season, from Mid October until the end of December, but we had to periodically swap the 32Gb SD cards as they would fill up after about 3-4 weeks. We also had to tape over the movement detector as that function still works even when timelapse is in operation. 

At the end of the season, we switched to every 2 min to pick up the final waifs and strays and to get some info on the moult, but, due to logistical reasons, we didn't have the chance to replace the batteries, nor could we change the SD cards. Even so, one of the cameras lasted until mid April i.e. over 6 months on a single set of batteries. We only had one of the eight cameras break and that was because a seal went over the top of the camera wrenching it from is anchorage point and eventually into the sea! It did get washed up but was in a sorry state after all that!. The others were all working perfectly and were ready for the seabird season.

Happy to provide more info if you need it

Richard  

Hi Meredith,

Here's a little more information about the Arribada cameras. They are solar powered and received enough power in the Antarctic winter continue photographing.  We programmed them to take an image every hour, which might frequent enough for you to monitor glacial ice. Even with 3 years of continuous monitoring, the memory card did not fill up. I think they are priced a little higher than 90 USD, but they can stand alone without maintenance for a long time. Depending on how remote your field site is, that might be beneficial.

We can send over some of the sea ice images we collected. They're fun and interesting to look at if nothing else.

Hi Erika, 

Suggestions coming in over on Twitter: 

In socks in a cupboard.

— Lisette Mill - Agvocate (@agvocate_au) June 8, 2022

I store my Cameras in one gallon plastic bags with a zipper lock. Most cameras will fit in that size bag. There is a note card that goes in the bag, The note card lasts longer in the bag and does not smear which it will if you write on the outside and is very important if you are running a lot of cameras. You can make a nice note card with a word processor and lay out everything you want to note. The Notes can be whatever you want to track but the most useful is the brand and model, the date the camera was purchased, The Date it went into the storage bag, Notes on if the camera has been updated. The camera number, the password if the camera needs a password, The person who put the camera in the bag with their full name and the date, A note on how the camera did on it's last deployment, Camera works fine, YES, or whatever might be wrong is listed. I would also list any special features that the camera can perform, such has WIFI enable, Cell Camera, etc. I also make sure the Cameras number is easy to see on the card. When the cameras go out they should have a camera number on the inside of the camera so you can track it in your field notes and make sure all the bags come back from deployment so they are ready for when the cameras come back in from the field. 

The batteries are removed from the camera, When I bring a camera in from the field I test each battery with a  battery tester. If all the batteries are still good that information is noted on the bag card that the batteries were tested and their strength. Keeping the batteries with the camera keeps you from mixing batteries of various strengths. Remove any bad batteries and note if a new one has been added. If you decide to replace all the batteries, Note on the card that they are NEW and their strength because all new batteries should be tested to make sure you did not get a bad one. If batteries are not available put that on the Note card, NOTE, removing the batteries will usually require all the settings to be redone, I still put on the note card, CAMERA NEEDS NEW SETTINGS. 

I also put in the SD Cards, with SD size on the Camera Card. Some of my older cameras only take a 32 gig or smaller, while my new cameras take 125 Gig SD cards. If putting out a camera for a very long run I want to grab one that can take a large SD card. I usually have two SD cards for each camera so they can be swapped out but keep the same cards. Put on the Camera Card that the SD card should reformatted before the next deployment or you can reformat the SD card before the batteries are removed, but NOTE on the camera card that the SD cards are formatted and ready to go. This is a good idea so you know before storage that the SD cards work. 

Last I add one packet of Silica Dry packs. The bags are 5 grams. I use DRY and DRY. I got them in a 50 packet bag from Amazon, about 8 bucks. They are cheap and do a great job of removing all the moisture from the Camera, batteries, SD card, and keeps them dry for even very very long storage. 

Hope this helps, when the camera number goes up the more you need to keep them organized. 

I forgot to add, I put the cameras in the bag with the doors or camera halves OPEN so the moisture does not stay in a closed camera, we want everything to stay dry. 

Couple other papers looking at predator-prey interactions with camera trap data & multi-species occupancy models (though you may/probably know about some of them already!) -

Van der Weyde, L. K., Mbisana, C., & Klein, R. (2018). Multi-species occupancy modelling of a carnivore guild in wildlife management areas in the Kalahari. Biological Conservation, 220, 21-28. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717316464. 

Murphy, A., Kelly, M. J., Karpanty, S. M., Andrianjakarivelo, V., & Farris, Z. J. (2019). Using camera traps to investigate spatial co‐occurrence between exotic predators and native prey species: a case study from northeastern Madagascar. Journal of Zoology, 307(4), 264-273. https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jzo.12645. 

Kleiven, E. F., Barraquand, F., Gimenez, O., Henden, J. A., Ims, R. A., Soininen, E. M., & Yoccoz, N. G. (2021). A dynamic occupancy model for interacting species with two spatial scales. bioRxiv, 2020-12. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.16.423067v2.abstract. 

@TomRS  @greghall and @htarold my initial (and brief) tests with the microwave sensor (same as this one: https://wiki.dfrobot.com/MicroWave_Sensor_SKU__SEN0192) I have suggest it's really sensitive to movement at fairly close range (~2m or less). Whilst this is impressive (like, it can detect my finger moving a few mm @ ~1-2m), it suggests that in order to avoid a lot of false positives/blank images, a fairly high tolerance or threshold would have to be set in the code. This will take a bit of trial and error to get right I reckon. Even though it has an in-buit potentiometer to toggle 'sensitivity' (equates to distance), even at the lowest setting, which is what I have it at, it's still really sensitive out at several metres. It definitely does appear to have an ability to tell the difference between a 'one off' or superficial movement, and more consistent movement that might be expected when an animal moves through an area. Maybe a combo PIR (interrupt) and microwave sensor (double checks after wakeup) could be a goer...although that could be a bit slow...Anyway, thought I'd share...

Thanks @PaulG and @TomRS I've now ordered some of the same model units, so shall hopefully get to test em out soon!

Cheers,

Rob

I've purchased my magnets here and the ferrous mounting stripes here. I've used UV cure superglue for attaching the magnets, as standard superglue sometmes failed after longperiod of being wet.

Just be aware of the limitations; you'll be transmitting at a very slow baud rate on frequencies that may have strict duty cycle (transmission time) and ERP (transmission power) limits. Check up on the rules for the region in which you intend to operate and make sure that the restrictions fit in with your intended application.

The following two papers describe our attempst to develop an open source RPi camera trap platform with long range communications capability, and may be of interest:

Nazir, S., Fairhurst, G., Verdicchio, F., 2017. WiSE - a satellite-based system for remote monitoring. Int. J. Satell. Commun. Netw. 35, 201–214. https://doi.org/10.1002/sat.1176

Nazir, S., Newey, S., Irvine, R.J., Verdicchio, F., Davidson, P., Fairhurst, G., Wal, R. van der, 2017. WiseEye: Next Generation Expandable and Programmable Camera Trap Platform for Wildlife Research. PLoS One 12, e0169758. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169758

More details can be found here: https://erg.abdn.ac.uk/wise/

/Scott

Vasudev

I have had no issues using ubiquiti device and pushing internet out to 5 miles line of site, what I am curious what are you using for you camera on the other end, I have always wanted to try and build a long distance wifi trail camera ( true wifi ).

is it solar powered or battery powered that has been my issue trying to figure out the power issue