If we get mice using the box as a home it will become a live streaming camera.

 I put this kit together because I wanted to find a way in which I could record mice or other small mammals either giving birth or just see what they get upto when they disapear into there holes so my idea was to try and get a wood/house mouse to build its home in the box and hopefully observe its hidden world its nest.

Part 1 - Making mouse box cam.

 First I got a special box made to fit this purpose then I installed a wire IR colour cctv camera into the box then divert the av cables to my wildlife cctv centre which powers and records the small mammal box.

 Part 2 - Mouse box Location.

 The first idea I thought was location I wondered if I should bury the mouse box leaving the hole above ground but would give the mouse more of a reason to make its home in the box. My second idea which I ended up using was to place the box into the hedge at the bottom of my garden as I have often watched mice running through the undergrowth with there young. So I secured it against a branch so it would also act as a bridge upto the entrance hole of the box make the mouse feel more comfortable when entering the box.

 Part 3 - Attracting a guest.

On thinking about how I have attracted mice out from cover in the past peanut butter was my first idea which usually brings mice to the where you want them in no time at all but mice must be within 50 metres of an area your baiting. So I baited the box with peanut butter on the 1st of June and left the camera turned off so if a mouse entered the box it would feel more confident about entering the box. The next day I checked and the bait was gone I could not wait to see what would be recorded on the next night so I set my dvr then rebaited the box and left well alone till the morning it's was so exciting.

Here's the footage I recorded on my dvr

After checking my dvr the next day I found that the box had been visited and fantastically my first guest in the box well was a wood mouse I was so amazed that a wild creature would use something that I had worked so hard on to setup and it had found it so quickly and did not seem nervous.

I also wanted to film the mouse entering the box from the outside so I set up a IR camera with a zoom lens on a cctv stand to fit the purpose of being in the hedge the zoom lens cut through the branches that obscured the view of the mouse box and enabled me to focus the camera on the hole so I would capture our little visitor in good focus heres what I recorded on the next night on my dvr recorder.

 Part 4 - Getting the mouse to sleep in the box - How could I do it ????????

 The first thing I thought was to put moss in the box or shredded paper and peanut butter together inside the box so when the mouse enters they might take the hint and use it in the autunm to store food give birth or to stay warm in the winter. Also I am going to do the burying box idea as well just to see which box the mouse would prefer to nest in either the underground box or in the higher up box in the hedge.

 Part 5 - Setting up the underground camera box

I decided to bury the box in the hedge behind a flower bed so the mice would feel safe and enter the box more often I followed all the same techniques from the first box starting with peanut butter baiting heres what I film on the 5th night a very confident wood mouse probably the same mouse seen in box A or perhaps its mate only time will tell if we will get a breeding pair nesting in either of the boxes or both.

Here is our test footage of the second mouse cam box A

In the video above I filmed slugs in the box I ended up speeding up the footage so you can see the slugs moving rather than watching a video of them moving very slowly this shows some amazing video of slugs which has changed my outlook on slugs and snails as I have never really been a fan but seeing how many different slugs and snails enter the mouse box and seeing them at a faster pace wasvery interesting.

Update saturday 1st August 2009 - The first mousey visitor

I decided to reconnect the power to the underground box and record overnight to see if anything had starting using the box as a home or a feeding place and a mouse entered the box at 2am on the Friday morning to feed on a bird seed mix and left then it came back at 4am for a little sniff then disapeered before sunrise at 5am but I suppose it will take time for a mouse to feel safe in either box I think in autumn or winter we will have a mouse or mice using our boxes for more than just a fast visit as we usually see baby mice in our hedge from October to December so we have the boxes in the best places I think it will just take time, luck and abit of more baiting.

Update Tuesday 1st September 2009 - The roof falls in Box A

I checked my camera's as I do every day but noticed something strange about the underground cam and the camera angle had changed so I had to dig up the mouse box to see what the issue was. When I had uncovered the box and I found it had collapsed inwards and filled the box with dirt and as I had to repair the mouse box I decided to alter the focus and change the angle but also seal the power cable joint with some fish tank sealant to stop moisture getting into the cameras circuits. To stop the collapse happening again I attached a steel cross bar to top of the roof so no amount of soil would push the roof into the box chamber it was lucky we had no guests who would have been entombed in the boxes collapse.

Update Saturday 5th September 2009 - Setting up a cam on the entrance Box B cam

I decided I wanted to see if anything was going near box b but not entering so I set up an IR Camera with a wide lens and faced it towards the box and left to see what I would capture here to entice the mouse I used my usual mouse bait peanut butter on the branch in front of the box and below is who showed up first a young dunnock that fledged recently.

As the sun went down the IR kicked in on the entrance cam so I thought I would record overnight just to see if anything turned up on the first night of setting the new cam up and here's what I captured below the mouse had visited the box a number of times and kept returning to box with food which meant the mouse finally felt safe and secure in the box and now we may get the mouse giving birth in the box which made me think that I needed a better inside view.

Update Saturday 5th September 2009 A different angle

  Following my idea of changing the view inside box B I bought a wider angle lens so I could see more of the inside of the box I decided on a 180 degree wide angle lens which inproved the quality and camera view 100% below is what I ended up with and I could have been more pleased with the new view and so I awaited to see what footage I would get in the future.

Update Sunday 20th September 2009 - We get our first overnight visitor in Box B.

 On the setting the up the new camera recorded a wood mouse sleeping and feeding in Box B for a whole night I put all the footage together from Box B entrance cam and Box B box cam that I had captured so far and made this video below which I was very pleased with the video that I had put together and the new techniques that I had learned from this project.

Update Sunday 30th September 2009 - And then there were two.

I left the camera on for 3 days and I thought I should check the footage to see if any more mice had been entering the box in the nightime hour's and found that we had an extra mouse in the box and wondered if one was a female and the other was a male and we were finally going to get a breeding pair live on camera a woodmouse giving birth only time would tell.

Update Sunday 4th October 2009 - Three sleepy mice.

After finding out there was an extra mouse in the box I left the camera on for a few more days incase they mated or the female gave birth but nothing happened as they had not entered the box for days then on the 3rd night they came back with an extra guest another mouse had joined the other two this was the first time I have ever seen 3 adult wood mice together was this a breeding group of 2 female's and a male or a family group of siblings trying keep warm after leaving there parent's territory we will have to wait and see if we get some more revealing footage of these shy mammal's.

 I will update when anything happens regarding the mouse box for now and I will bait it and I will leave the box turned off and check every day to see if the anything has moved into either of the mouse boxes.

 If you have any questions or any idea's that I could use then you are welcome to email me or would like an email when we update any of our wildlife camera blog's.

 If we get mice using the box as a home it will become a live streaming camera.