Stream From a Birdbox With a Pi

YOU’LL NEED THIS - A RASPBERRY PI & A COMPATIBLE IR CAMERA

- IAN EVENDEN

Some wood and a few screws. Friendly local bird life.

HELLO, AND WELCOME TO MAXIMUM CARPENTRY MAGAZINE, where “Minimum BS” stands for “Bowed Softwoods.” This month, we’ll be knocking up a bird-nesting box in about five minutes, then showing you how you can outfit it with clever camera trickery to watch the nestlings inside.

Oh, who are we kidding? We’re better at routing cables than routing cabinets. However, we like birds, so we’re going to take our mediocre woodworking skills and build that birdbox, then use a Raspberry Pi and an IR camera to outfit it with a night-vision surveillance system that can wirelessly (apart from power) send pictures directly to the internet for us to watch or share on a streaming site—in this case YouTube.

The pattern you use to build the box doesn’t matter, but it’s worth building your own (or buying an extra coffee for someone with the requisite skills), as ready-made ones rarely have the space for camera equipment. You’ll also need to put a little more thought into waterproofing, and siting the box in a place where you can run a power cable to it.

1 CUT THE WOOD

Find a birdbox pattern online and buy a plank of wood of the correct dimensions from a hardware store. Follow the pattern, but add about four inches in height, and an extra “ceiling” to separate the Pi compartment at the top. You’ll need to leave some space or cut a hole for the ribbon cable to pass through to the camera. We’re using a Raspberry Pi 4 running stock Raspberry Pi OS and a camera with its own IR lights and photoresistor [