The people running Wildlife Windows have worked in conservation in a professional capacity in habitat management, wildlife interpretation and scientific research.  We have also helped as volunteers, from practical work at nature reserves, up to service on the Board of Trustees and several advisory committees of a major UK charity.  So, we like to think we understand the pleasures and pains, demands and constraints of professional conservation. We also realise that most people working in conservation don't know very much about video cameras and associated technology.  We don't expect you to tell us what equipment you want (though of course we don't mind if you do!).  Instead, we will help you from any point in the development of a project, whether it be the germ of an idea to a full specification. We will show you how to get the best from any wildlife-watching opportunity. How can we help?  We understand issues with funding and people management, and can advise best practise to maximise success.  We know about wildlife disturbance risks and legal constraints. We can usually gauge whether a particular camera installation will be successful.  Wild animals are rarely predictable, of course, but we've got to know many key species pretty well and have several tricks for ensuring they don't know they are being watched! We won't recommend any camera installation unless we think it has a good chance of success. We've created some innovative tools for guided walks, such as hand-held bat cams and a field screen.  We designed and built these for our own wildlife events, so they are exactly right for the task.  There's no better way to get a product just right than to have it designed by someone who also uses it.  You don't even have to tell us what wildlife you'd like to watch.  If you have, for example, a visitor centre in a nature reserve and you want some live action screens, we can help determine what species are most likely to provide good images.  A description of the site (habitat, terrain and distribution of facilities such as mains power and broadband) and a location for us to look at the aerial view on Google Earth, are often all we need in the first instance.

EIAs often require wildlife monitoring procedures, and sometimes the important events (e.g. presence/absence/passage) are transient and infrequent.  Remotely triggered video cameras are perfect for this type of work.  We have supplied systems for otters, badgers and bats, and can adapt the components to suit other species. Furthermore, it can often be difficult to place an observer in exactly the right place due to inaccessibly or disturbance risks.  In these cases a strategically placed camera can provide a better 'real time' view as well as the opportunity to record video and audio for more detailed analysis later.

Many of our farmer and landowner clients are involved in the tourism industry and wish to use their wildlife resources to add value to this part of their business (see 'Tourism Provider' for more details).  However, we have several clients who simply like our bird nestboxes, need our surveying expertise (including for Schedule One species for which we are licensed) or want their own private wildlife watching systems.

Our equipment has a higher specification than off-the-shelf consumer products.  If you want well-designed, professional-standard kit, then we are the company to use.  We have a number of private clients who have asked us to install complete wildlife watching systems in their home and garden/grounds.  These typically comprise specialist nestboxes (e.g. kestrel, barn owl, tawny owl) or mammal accommodation (bat box, otter holt, badger sett) with integrated cameras.  Video and sound are fed from the wildlife cameras back to the house, usually to the main TV,  via cabled or wireless transmission systems.   Often we will add switching system to change the source of the video feed (e.g. to provide different 'wildlife channels').  Design and installation of this type of system depends greatly on our key complementary skill sets:  wildlife knowledge and technological expertise.  When asked to provide a wildlife watching system for your home, we will examine the local area (garden, grounds, farm or estate) and advise which wildlife resources are available for watching. We can fit cameras to existing resources (e.g. traditional nest sites, bird or mammal feeders, streams or ponds etc, ), or install accommodation to attract birds or mammals.   Each system is bespoke, and there are a range of technologies available to bring the sound and video to a screen in your home.  We can install everything from wildlife accommodation to screens, and even stream the video to your website.

Pellet picking is enormously popular with children of all ages.  It entails dissection of owl pellets (regurgitated, but perfectly dry) and identification of the small mammal bones and skulls they contain.   We provide all the equipment for this and expertise from our CRB-checked staff.

We cut our wildlife camera teeth in this sector of the tourism industry.  Prior to starting Wildlife Windows we ran an EU-funded project called 'Chalk & Hawks' (www.chalkandhawks.org.uk).  We recognised that people who take holidays in the country enjoy seeing wildlife but usually lack the expertise and equipment (optics, clothing etc.) to fully access it.  Holiday accommodation providers are usually able to give their visitors an enhanced experience by installing relatively simple camera systems such as blue/great tit nest boxes or peanut feeders that connect directly to a channel on the TV in the holiday accommodation.   Some of our more adventurous customers have wireless links to owl and buzzard nests and upload the images to their websites.  There are clear marketing advantages to being able to offer 'something special', especially if this can include live wildlife webcams on your website. Our tourism accommodation clients include owners of farm holiday cottages,  groups of holiday chalets, caravan sites and B&B/hotels.

Although it's not really part of our business, we enjoy sharing our wildlife experiences with like-minded people.  We make a small charge for giving presentations, just to cover our costs in preparing and delivering them.  We can of course offer our usual professional services of wildlife camera installation to clubs and societies.  A few amateur naturalist groups have asked us to provide camera-equipment nestboxes, for instance. We can also help organise larger scale events, such as the ones shown in the photos (details below). Photos Top: Guided wildlife walk.  The walk leader is talking about dragonflies prior to visiting a pond.  We used underwater cameras on poles for virtual pond dipping (we also did some REAL pond dipping).  To examine tiny creatures from the pond we used a macro camera and day-light viewable screen.  This set-up is great for showing a group of people details of inverts and flowers....it's like a communal magnifying glass. Bottom: An event we held for the Chalk & Hawks Project.  It was a 'Badger and Bat Barbecue'.  There were no bat and badger burgers, just a presentation with live projected images from a nearby badger sett followed by a bat walk.

National Trust properties have special requirements and constraints (such as with cabling on buildings).  NT members and visitors have particular interests that are perhaps the most diverse of all the organisations for which we work.   Although visitors are most interested in cultural heritage, many also enjoy countryside and wildlife, but probably miss much of the best wildlife at NT properties because it is too difficult to access.  Our job is to improve this access, typically though bringing images of the most special wild creatures at an NT property to a place where visitors can easily see them.    A good example is bat roost cameras.  Many NT buildings have bat roosts, but of course these are entirely inaccessible to visitors.  Installing cameras within roosts provides wonderful, privileged views of the bats.  Most importantly though, the installation MUST NOT disturb the bats, nor contravene any wildlife legislation.   This is where the knowledge and expertise of our staff at Wildlife Windows comes into its own. We can help select the best wildlife watching opportunities at a site and ensure that no harm comes to the animals, the building or the organisation. The name 'Wildlife Windows' was first coined by us for a scheme we set up at NT Kingston Lacy in Dorset. We installed a number of wildlife cameras with special connection points nearby.  Visitors could hire small viewing screens which plugged into the connection points to see, for example, inside a bird nest box.  We also lead guided walks using the cameras and a larger, communal viewing screen (from which our [Field Screen] was developed). The scheme was run only for a short trial period and has not been repeated.  However, if you are interested in running a similar scheme at your site, please feel free to contact us for a chat about it.

Wildlife Windows serves a diverse range of corporate/commercial clients, such as airports, construction companies and power utilities.   Whether or not there is any green space on site, there are still opportunities to host wildlife and deploy a camera to watch them.  Kestrel and Peregrine nest boxes are a particular favourite for tall buildings, even in the centre of towns or industrial areas.  We can help in all aspects of wildlife and habitat management, but our particular specialism is in the design and installation of camera-equipped wildlife housing and accommodation.  Bird nest boxes are most common example, of course, and there are many forms of these, the choice of which depends on the species and the site.   But we don't just cater for birds.  We can also build artificial badger setts, otter holts, bird and mammal feeders, depending on the resources (e.g. habitat) available and the level of interest in attracting wild creatures to a site and watching them at VERY close quarters with a video camera.   Setting up wildlife watching is much, much more than just putting in a CCTV camera.  To get the best results you need expertise in AV technology AND wildlife. This is our niche at Wildlife Windows.  We are the perfect partner to help you plan a wildlife watching facility and company webcam, and to design, supply and install the necessary equipment, including properly designed and sited wildlife accommodation with integral cameras. Photos Top: The small dot on the side of this building is a kestrel nestbox Bottom: The same kestrel nestbox as in the other picture,  just to prove that's really what it is.

Some uses of outdoor camera systems are quite inspirational.   One such application is 'Room with a view', which brings live video into hospitals for patients to have the opportunity to watch the world outside their room or ward.  Currently the images on show are mainly scenic, rather than of wildlife, but a video stream from a bird feeder would be an alternative source of images.  Although most public buildings are in towns and cities, this should not be a bar to having a wildlife camera.  Indeed, bringing people closer to wildlife in a city may make an even greater contribution to nature conservation.  Some species of bird and bats thrive in towns, and there is often green space where other species live.  If you would like a wildlife camera of some sort, but haven't a clue what is available in or on your building, please call us for a chat.  We can nearly always find a wildlife-watching opportunity at any site. Urban spaces bring their own technological and logistical challenges, but we have handled quite a lot of these and know the problems... and their solutions. Photos Top: Wildlife Windows peregrine nesting platform on a public building.  Bottom: underwater view from a stream close to a library, where we installed a camera and viewing system.

Most of our RSPB installations have been highly innovative, some never before attempted in the UK, perhaps even world-firsts.  These include camera-enabled bearded tit nest boxes (wigwams),  sand martin nest cameras, and multi-km WiFi audio, video and PTZ control links.  We understand the sensitivities of working on an RSPB reserve, and the particular needs of the organisation. As the UK's premier bird conservation charity, RSPB has a leading role in providing the BEST bird watching experiences for people visiting its reserves, especially for visitors with limited expertise and equipment, who benefit hugely from experiencing close-up views of birds at the visitor centre.  Bringing people closer to wild creatures helps them connect with and value nature more.  Wildlife Windows is proud to be helping in this endeavour.

Many biological research projects require remote monitoring or automated recording equipment that is not available commercially or at an affordable price.  Quite often there will be consumer products that almost fit the bill, but require some modification.  Students do not usually have the electronics knowledge to do this, and sometimes we can help. One example of a system, developed initially for one researcher and now available for others, is a nestbox camera with video recorder to help identify prey delivered by little owls.  The requirement was for a clear view of prey items held in the owl's bill as it entered the box.  We had to design the box to ensure that the owl hesitated for a fraction of a second at a point where the image was clear and a frame grab could be made (later) to id the prey.  This example is a good one to illustrate our unusual mix of skills - understanding the needs of a research project, knowing about little owls and their nestboxes, and being able to adapt cameras and recording equipment to fit an unusual niche. Equipment such as the little owl camera can also be modified to suit other, similar applications, as required.  Photos Top: Ruggedised automatic AV recorder, designed and built by Wildlife Windows. Bottom: Frame grab of a little owl carrying a cock-chaffer to its chicks in a purpose-built nestbox.  We developed this entire system specifically for monitoring prey species and delivery rates for a research project on little owls.

One of the most important roles of any wildlife trust is nature interpretation, especially in reserve visitor centres, and on a website.  The closer that people can  make contact with wildlife, and the better their understanding of it, the more they will appreciate and value it.  Our role is in helping to achieve closer contact and greater understanding of nature.  We can bring moving images of animals into the comfortable environment of a visitor centre.  We can put cameras in places where it would not be possible to see by any other means.  We can also provide the infrastructure around a viewing screen, means to interact with the cameras, and interpretation material including text and photo panels and edited video highlights. As well as infrastructure projects, Wildlife Windows also provides portable equipment such as pond-dipping cameras, robust outdoor viewing screens, macro cameras and bat watching IR cameras. Our relationship with the wildlife trusts we already work with is on-going and long-term.  Usually, at the start, we install simple camera systems and a viewing screen at a flag-ship reserve.  This can later be expanded to include additional cameras.  Other reserves see the benefits, realise they have great wildlife-watching opportunities too, and more cameras and viewing systems are installed.  Video and sound from selected wildlife cameras can be streamed live to the Internet at the Trust's website, and this can provide a way to generate new members and donations.  If you work for a wildlife trust and would like to know what we could offer on your reserves, please contact us by phone or email for a chat.  If you don't already know what wildlife you'd like to make visible to your members, prospective members and website or reserve centre visitors, we can usually advise based on simple information about the site and aerial photographs (e.g. Google Earth).  One of our most enjoyable activities is figuring out how to film new species and how to get fresh angles on species we've filmed before.  There is always something new that can be done, and building on our experience in this field, is the best way to make it happen.