Nestbox Counters are electronic counters which you can buy and fit onto the front of almost all hole-fronted nestboxes. They have been specially developed to give an accurate measurement of the number of visits made to a nest. Nestbox Counters help you to learn much more about your wildlife than you ever could with just a nestbox camera. You can monitor the breeding patterns of birds, learn more about their behaviour, and measure how frequently they are finding food to bring back to the nest for their chicks, without any wiring or any intrusion into the box.
Nestbox Counters allow you to measure activity in a way that is almost impossible with just a nestbox camera, so they make the perfect complement to nestbox cameras for anyone who enjoys learning more about the wildlife around them. Being so much cheaper and more versatile than nestbox cameras, you can fit them to every hole-fronted nestbox and instantly see when birds are starting to visit the nestboxes without any drilling or wiring or connecting to a monitor.
We at NatureCounters are very proud to be the first people ever to develop and manufacture Nestbox Counters, and our range includes Batboxes and Hedgehog boxes, as well as data loggers for detailed recording of visit times .
Here is a little continuous loop of video, showing a Nestbox Counter fitted to the front of an RSPB nestbox going up from 64 to 67 visits.
You can fit our Nestbox Counters to a nestbox in a matter of seconds using the screws provided with nothing more than a screwdriver.
Our Nestbox Counters are powered by 2 AA batteries with a battery life of one year, and need no additional wiring. The Nestbox Counters use a dual light-beam detection circuit which allows them to detect partial entries, full entries, partial exits and full exits from the nestbox whilst a double-count-prevention algorithm is used for the times when a bird puts its head in and out of the box during one visit. The electronic circuit has a waterproof coating to protect it from rain and damp
You can use our Nestbox counters to trigger Nestbox Cameras, both video cameras and still cameras, either inside or outside the box, for example to trigger the video recording of each bird entering or leaving the nest.
The bigger picture - What is the "Nestbox Counters Project"?
At NatureCounters, we see our Nestbox Counters as part of a bigger picture. The Nestbox Counters Project is about the Environment, about Climate Change, about Conservation, and above all, it is a project about People.
The aims of the Nestbox Counters Project are:
To get people out into their gardens learning more about the wildlife around them, by plotting simple readings from Nestbox Counters throughout the year.
To provide a new and innovative revenue stream for environmental charities by selling Nestbox Counters, nestboxes, and other nature monitoring equipment.
To gather consistent and reliable records of nesting, breeding and provisioning habits of birds, bats, and other small mammals over a wide area and long period, as a basis for monitoring changing breeding patterns, through an international, online database.
