How to Use Technology and Bird Cameras to Witness Earth Flights

In Britain we pride ourselves on our wildlife conservation and consequently we care about the habitat just as much as the wildlife itself. This is evident with the amount of surveillance that has been placed around the country.

Recently more and more cameras have been installed to keep an eye on the wildlife – particularly birds – and we have seen more of us wanting to watch the birds in our garden with Bird Box Cams.

In Bempton it is not out of the ordinary to see thousands of birds clinging to the cliffs. From Guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, to puffins and gannets – there are a huge number of birds that attract visitors to the wildlife reserve.

Due to all the delight from a camera that was installed last year a second one has just been installed between the Bartlett Nab and Jubilee viewpoints overlooking the birds’ nests.

These cameras magnify up to 60 times, and pick up minute details of the birds feathers and of tiny cracks in the eggs.

Another reserve that is home to puffins is the Farne Islands. Here, scientists have been using various types of technology to try and pinpoint clues that are vital to the birds’ survival. The islands are their breeding grounds, but they go elsewhere to feed, to hotspots 20 miles out to sea. Little is known however about how they get there and why they go to these specific places.

Geo-locators, attached to their feathers explain how often these birds dive and to what depth, as well as this time-depth recorders are attached to their legs solve the mystery of where they go in the winter.

The Puffins start to return to the islands around the beginning of April, so we expect to hear more information and images of these birds in their breeding grounds.

A recent documentary on the BBC called Earth Flight, narrated by David Tennant, caught many birds whilst in flight with the use of high spec technology, but also by being able to fly alongside them with a microlight.

New, tiny, ultra-lightweight HD cameras have now been developed which are used as ‘bird-cams’. This makes it easier to film larger birds, such as eagles, condors and vultures as they are able to carry the matchbox sized cameras on their backs like little rucksacks.

Scientists and wildlife specialists are using technology more and more to witness things we have never before been able to and to raise awareness of the beauty of nature and of how these birds’ habitats are changing.