Abstract
Remote photography using various photo, movie or video devices has been employed in numerous studies in wildlife research during the last 50 years. Given the rapid advances in digital technologies, digital video and photo techniques are becoming more common in use, and publications that introduce a new method or equipment for video surveillance in wildlife research (and in ornithological studies particularly) are appearing almost every year. However, still no special guide to the great variety of equipment and methods is available, and the choice and use of suitable gear for scientific purposes may be difficult for non-specialists. In this paper, we review the most common surveillance techniques used in today’s nest studies, as well as the most essential properties of image recording equipment. We also describe the digital video recording technique, which we used for observations of raptor nests, and summarise our experience of its operation. As an example of the obtained data, we present the timing of prey deliveries of goshawks and common buzzards.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Jari Ylönen, Juhani Itämies, the Experimental Zoo and the Zoological Museum of the University of Oulu for support in funds and equipment. Matti Rauman was our guru and rescuer in all technical issues. Matti Suopajärvi kindly accommodated our caravan and informed us of the location of most of the buzzard nests. We also thank Kalevi Tunturi, Pentti Hukkanen and Mikko Viitanen for assistance and for providing us with nest coordinates, Patrik Byholm for help with the literature data, Vladimir Tumanov for improving the language of the manuscript and Erkki Korpimäki for valuable comments. The Foundation of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (Suomen Luonnonsuojelun Säätiö), Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation and the Environmental Graduate School EnviroNet of the University of Oulu provided the financial support at various stages of the study (to VR). The methods used in this study comply with the current laws of Finland.
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Reif, V., Tornberg, R. Using time-lapse digital video recording for a nesting study of birds of prey. Eur J Wildl Res 52, 251–258 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-006-0039-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-006-0039-1