Trail cams.

[Oliver Buckle]

I have seen fox and badger in the garden rarely, but see evidence of them regularly. We have thought about a camera to record nocturnal events, but the price range seems to be huge. We are on a slightly limited budget, but don't want to get something useless, or miss out on necessary extras. Do you have experience of any, and what have you found? Partly I worry that it won't be used for long once we see what's there, are there other things to look for later?

 

[YumYum]

We just have one of the cheap models from Walmart with infrared and it works just fine. Not really any bells or whistles on this one. Infrared, video or image, shot count, trigger timer is all that matters to me. You can get them to send pics to your phone but not really something I need. Not sure what you can get in your country. Deer, fox, raccoon, possum, dog , cat are all that I see at night which is to be expected. Never caught bigfeet on camera.

 

[Meadowlark]

... Do you have experience of any, and what have you found? ...

Yes, I use them regularly to help keep tabs on the property. I have several from Moltrie that work well.

I have a collection of photos from them I find interesting. Included are the largest deer I've seen in these parts, the proverbial wild hogs, all kinds of small animals and an occasional two footed upright trespasser. I'm hoping to someday capture the return of the black bear to this area and get the elusive cougar in a photo. You just never know what will turn up.

 

[zigs]

I've found ours very useful, we have used it for surveilance after a sasquatch left the cactus house door open but it never came back.

Otherwise I've used it for capturing hedgepigs...

Bluetits...

And more recently, cacti that move when you can't see them

You'll have to ask Tetters how much the camera was, it was a Christmas present

 

[Oliver Buckle]

'Nobody knows why the cacti move...' It's that Lamarckian thing again, there doesn't have to be a why if mutation is random. So long as it doesn't harm the chances of survival it is fit to survive until something fitter to survive comes along and squeezes it out. 'It does it because...' implies this is a deliberate policy. If doing something increases a variant's chance of survival it becomes dominant, but it doesn't do it in order to become dominant. Genetic variation is random leading to advantageous, non advantageous and disadvantageous variations, the disadvantageous lose the competition, the advantageous increase, but if the variation is neither an advantage to survival nor a disadvantage they can simply carry on in competition with nothing.

 

[zigs]

Yes.

There was an Echinoid that evolved so it's bum was right next to it's mouth. It didn't stay in the fossil record very long.