Before 2017 I had no idea we had hedgehogs in our garden but one afternoon I saw one walking up our garden path, after which I started to put out food and water. I then made my first feeding box and put in a camera to check it was cat proof.
Since then I have come to enjoy watching their nocturnal activities, and now have a 3 feeding boxes and 2 sleeping boxes, each with a camera inside.
In general I try not to disturb them but if a hedgehog is injured or needs assistance I take it to a local sanctuary (usually PACT www.pactsanctuary.org/).
I sometimes temporarily foster autumn juveniles that are too small to safely hibernate over-winter.
The cameras are all various home security CCTV security cameras. These are wired network cameras which I find much more reliable than WiFi or trail wildlife cameras, giving a far better image, being more reliable generally and providing a live view without requiring batteries.
I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I do.
Hogs in HD
Viewers of the live stream will be familiar with Spock, a regular visitor for the last 3 years+.
Last night, after being absent for one night, he appeared with severe eye injuries and was captured.
I took him to the sanctuary first thing this morning and I just called and found out some awful news; both his eyes were ruptured and he was in a lot of pain so they decided to put him to sleep.
I'm so sorry and sad.
Rest in peace dear silverback, I won't forget you 😢🖖🌈💕🦔
Here is a video from 2023 showing him in his prime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwJmz...
4 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 120
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Secret of hedgehog hearing discovered at far beyond human range
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d52n0dnzro
1 month ago | [YT] | 54
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Hogs in HD
Now that Rambo is back it's time to stock up on the wet food!
Thank you to everyone who has donated to the channel to help cover the cost of the food for all the hedgehogs.
1 month ago | [YT] | 26
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Hogs in HD
Happy Christmas one and all
3 months ago | [YT] | 65
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I sometimes get asked about the cameras I use. Like most things in IT, there are many solutions but here is my solution and why I chose it, along with some pointers about how to view the resulting video output.
The camera(s):
I use various CCTV dome cameras that I find on eBay (usually 2nd hand, but often they are unused leftovers from home security installers). I originally tried a "trail cam" from Amazon but found the image quality was much worse, no live feed and lots of batteries to keep swapping so gave up on it.
Key features I look for are:
- wired (not wifi) via ethernet (network) cable. Totally reliable compared to wifi. Obviously more faff to install the wire but worth it in the long run for the extra reliability and since you have to run a wire for power anyway it seems like it's not that much harder.
- 'POE' (power over ethernet) - which means the camera gets its power down the same network cable it uses to send the video stream, so no need to run a separate power wire. All decent home security dome cameras I have seen support POE, although it does require a suitable device on the other end of the network cable to 'inject' power into the cable - either a POE network switch, or a 'POE injector'.
- 2.8mm lens (widest field of view, rather than 4mm which is narrower). Check the description as the same model number can come with different lens options.
- built in microphone. Harder to find as most CCTV cameras don't have this. For Hikvision, this means the -U option. Beware of the -S option, which means the camera has audio but you have to connect a microphone yourself.
- infra-red illumination. Required to work in complete darkness. Most have this but some don't, again check description.
- fixed orientation (not motorised movement) and fixed zoom/focus, just because that's the simplest/cheapest type.
The ones I have are made by Hikvision but I'm sure others would be just as good. Some random example models are the DS-2CD2143G0-IU (full size) or DS-2CD2563G0-IS (mini).
I also tend to manually tweak the focus of the lens to match the distance, so for example inside my feeding boxes and hutches they are usually working at about 6-12 inches which is closer than they are normally set to focus on at the factory. This does require taking them apart though which is a bit fiddly, but they are still usable without doing that.
How to view live video output:
This is another area with a lot of options and details (too many to go into here), but to just look at the live view from one camera (or one at a time), you can use a computer on the same network to run a network video player that is capable of reading an 'RTSP' video stream (for example the free program 'VLC media player'). Note that the camera will probably need some configuration to set it's internal IP address, a username and password etc. before you can access the video stream. A typical address for the video stream of a configured Hikvision camera (which could be entered into VLC for example) would be something like:
rtsp://username:password@192.168.1.64:554/Streaming/channels/101
... where username, password and the IP address would be as per the camera configuration.
If you want to perform motion detection, recording or handle more than one camera that requires some form of NVR (network video recorder). NVRs can either be physical hardware, or software running on a computer. I use a software one, called 'Agent DVR'.
I hope that helps 🦔🎥
4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 27
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Hogs in HD
The live stream currently begins with the first garden visitor 🦔, but now that the weather has turned colder that could mean starting late or (not at all).
I wonder the stream should go ahead regardless of whether there is a garden visitor (perhaps for social reasons etc.).
What do you all think..
Should the live stream run each evening, regardless?
5 months ago | [YT] | 25
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The image from tonight's live stream (inspired by overhead fighter aircraft noises, as I am close to a few military air bases here in Norfolk).
5 months ago | [YT] | 39
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Some 'imagine if..' image suggestions from a recent live stream.
Apologies to those who don't like AI images, if you want to see real hedgehogs there are plenty in the videos and live stream recordings on this channel. 🦔😀
5 months ago | [YT] | 33
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Hogs in HD
My bike still has pannier bags on from my recent trip, so I did a big hog food shop today. It still took 2 trips though (tinned food is very heavy!).
- 47 tins of wet food. I put out 1 per day so this should last until the end of October.
- 6x 2kg bags of dry food.
- 3x sterilising fluid (for cleaning the food and water bowls)
- 2x food bowls
-> £54.53
Thank you so much to everyone who has ever donated to help towards the cost (but all are welcome to enjoy watching the hogs whether you donate or not).
In the second picture you can see the food preparation area in my shed with tonight's bowls ready to go. Through the window on the right, if you look carefully you might just see the fence feeder box with the lid open (next to the fence panel).
🦔🍽️
7 months ago | [YT] | 34
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Hogs in HD
🦔💪 Rambo returns!
I'm so happy 😄
Rambo is hedgehog that has been visiting for at least 2 years. He is distinguishable by a small notch in his right ear lobe. Although he is a fairly large male, he is very gentle, often to his detriment since he always seems to be on the losing end of any aggression from other hedgehogs (I'm looking at you Spock ). Of all the hedgehogs that visit here, he is the one that favours wet tinned food most (I don't think I can remember seeing him eat anything else).
Recently he picked up a wound on his side, and also for a while has been having some breathing difficulties, so on 3rd August he was captured and taken to the excellent and very kind vet at PACT animal sanctuary www.pactsanctuary.org/ where he was treated and rehabilitated. It was also noted that he is quite old and is missing a lot of teeth - which explains why he likes the soft wet food. The cause of the injury is likely a fight with another hedgehog.
He was released on Sunday evening 17th August and early this morning 20th August was his first return since.
Yipee!
capture
youtube.com/live/7wnqgz-EHHs?t=2725s
release
youtube.com/live/VlE9czLsfkA?t=4457s
return
youtube.com/live/nZfv5tGQM6g?t=16628s
8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 87
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