HD game cam live online

Phew! A project is finally finished and the results are online.

A buddy of mine had this great idea of broadcasting live 1080P full HD stream from my feeder onto his web page and as a tech geek I was all for it. We built a system combining a waterproof 2Mpix IP camera, quite a bit of CAT6 cabling, an LTE uplink with a high-gain antenna and assorted bits and pieces to make it work. It's streaming through one of my servers.

Take a look yourself, https://www.nordicshot.fi/riistalive/

("riista" = game in finnish, "live"... well, you've probably figured it out by now)

Enjoy. It's pretty addictive when you keep it rolling for a while. Approximately a dozen whitetails and a few roe deer frequent the feeder daily. Catching a glimpse of moose or fallow deer isn't out of the question either.

Thanks. A couple of fat does on camera right now, along with a rabbit. Another full-blown disney moment at the feeder, all we need now is a few birds and butterflies.

I haven't paid much attention to trophy bucks lately. I think I've already shot my lifetime record buck a few years ago and if I were to improve on that in this area, I think it wouldn't qualify with B&C anyway because the location is almost 3500 miles from the continental US.

(Timezone is eastern european time, EET, by the way. 7 hours ahead of EST, 10 hours of PST)

This is more of a "fun cam" for anyone interested to enjoy online, instead of a personal hunting tool. A bit of the same feeling you get when you're in a blind or on a treestand waiting for something to happen. Live trailcams online are nothing new, of course. This may be a bit different, a down-to-earth, makeshift operation in a high game density (and variety!) area, with an idea to give first-hand view to everything and anything that might show up, instead of showcasing particular well-fed examples of select species.

These does showed up this morning at around 7:20am...

...and two last year's fawns flew by at 5:40am.


These are just highlights of about a dozen pictures since last night. The motion detection sensitivity is at the lowest setting now so it doesn't pick up rabbits, hares, raccoon dogs, birds or just leaves moving in the wind. There's still some fine-tuning to do but now it already works better than I originally expected.

You're welcome. Today has been a busy day at the feeder after the heatwave and impending thunderstorm. Three does and a velvet buck feeding at the same time in early afternoon, not to mention a lot of traffic throughout the day.

I detached the video window and placed it onto my desktop to keep me entertained whenever working gets boring. Nine more weeks until the season starts...

The cam has been offline for a couple of days. We got torrential rain and connectors got soaked so I had to replace them and let the camera dry. Now it's back up again. More rain tomorrow, I hope the self-vulcanizing tape holds this time.

The feeder seems to have ran out of oats now. Refill tomorrow, even though the deer seem to feed around if there's nothing in the feeder. Definitely a good sign, they've memorized the spot.

The big boys have started frequenting at the feeder. This guy has been around for the fourth night in a row now.
These b_$%@rds seem to have an appetite too, I poured close to 100lbs oats into the feeder last night and now it's all gone.

I probably should move the feeder to a nearby field, sow some alfalfa and assorted crops to keep these guys happy and fill the feeder once or twice a week.

This younger roebuck is a bit cautious and got driven off the feeder by a whitetail doe a moment later.

Whitetails, on the other hand, made their dinner a family affair. Funny thing, usually this buck feeds late at night, now it was there around 8:30pm when I usually see only does.

Last but not least, the motion detector folder was full of blurred pics of fieldfare chicks. There are at least 5-6 coveys of them nearby, 40-50 in total, learning to fly and behaving like complete d!ck$. Reminds me of the Pixar short "For The Birds"...

Thank you for all the kind comments. Anything to keep the community of hunting brothers entertained (except, possibly for a remote controlled rifle idea... that'll need more R&D as long as I get to keep the venison ). You really should thank my buddy Yrssi (Toni) at Nordicshot for this, it's been his crazy idea all along and I've been in it as a techie (that's probably what mad scientists are called this days?) and a humble, easily excitable landowner.

Last few days have been a bit busy so I've neglected filling the feeder and Yrssi is up north in Norway fishing salmon. I planned to do it tonight but it's past midnight now so tomorrow another 100lbs of oats & some more scent will be going in. There's no real need as there's food everywhere and temperatures have been in high 70°F's so the deer don't like to move much. Then again, I keep finding myself eyeing at the cam window when I'm supposed to be doing something productive.

For example, this doe has been checking the feeder every couple of hours, waiting to find more food. Tonight 6:15pm, 8:40pm, 10:50pm and so on. Gotta love it when the feeder has ran out of oats and they still stop by to check.

Obturation said:

I saw a bug!
Cool cam, I'll be checking back on it periodically, thanks!
My grandmother's family is from Jurva, Finland . I've been through Helsinki twice, looks like a sportsman paradise!

Click to expand...

The cam is just a stone's throw from downtown Helsinki so you might be right, there are quite a bit of opportunities for a sportsman everywhere. Finland, Sweden and Norway are more or less the only European countries that have as long history of hunting as a common people's right as the US. And boy, does it show.

I've been to Jurva a few times, not hunting but touring car racing related events at Botniaring; absolutely beautiful and I've heard moose hunting is pretty awesome in that area. If you ever have a chance, give it a try. Some locals especially in Ostrobotnia may be a bit reserved (think the movie "Deliverance") but when you have familial roots there, you'll most likely be A-OK right off the bat. As a Helsinki & southern Finland "city slicker" I definitely wouldn't be so you already have an advantage.

Filled the feeder 15 minutes ago and just opened the camera monitor. The first doe is already munching away the oats. Do they wait in the bushes now and dig in the minute I'm gone?

An update. Considering the amount of traffic the cam gets from the US my buddy created a section in english, https://nordicshot.fi/en/ and a direct link to the cam itself https://nordicshot.fi/en/live-game-camera/ . More material is on the way as soon as he gets it translated, now there's the part 1 of a .308 bullet test article online.

The fields nearby are pretty much harvested and there's a lot of traffic at the feeder, at the rate of 50-70lbs of grain a day. Quite a lot for a small feeder like this.

Pardon us for occasional interruptions. Autumn storms cause power outages in the area and there's just so much a medium-sized UPS can do to keep the camera, LTE router and video server running when mains power is out even hours at a time.