Last Updated on 14/09/2021 by Alex Squire
Recently, I set up a wildlife camera to try and see what animals come into my garden at night. I bought an Apeman H40 trail camera which has night vision capabilities and is motion activated. I placed it next to the hedge to try and catch things that came through from the field next door.
Apeman H40 trail camera Review
The H40 has a 20-megapixel camera and the clarity of the video recorded could be better. It’s not crystal clear but it’s good enough so that you can see what has triggered the sensor.
You can set the camera to take photos when it’s triggered by movement or film a video clip for a specified amount of time. I set it to record 30 seconds of video when the sensors are triggered.
You can also change the quality of the video recorded. The night-time video quality seems to be better than daytime.
The camera is in a waterproof case so it’s rainproof. But I’m not sure exactly how much rain it can withstand. I’m not convinced that it could cope with a torrential downpour.
The camera comes with a bracket and a strap that you can use to attach it to a tree or something. I have attached mine to a wooden stick to keep it steady and easy to move around the garden.
Creatures caught on my Wildlife camera
Most of what the camera has picked up so far were either my 2 dogs, my mum who gets up at the crack of dawn, or birds.
But there have been some more interesting things. The camera filmed a hedgehog a couple of times which was nice to see. We had put down some dog food on the ground to try and attract some creatures but it didn’t always work.
My dogs seemed to enjoy it though when they got up in the morning.
We also managed to film a squirrel and a pheasant.
Recently we have had a spate of molehills appearing on the lawn so we tried to catch the culprit in action on the Wildlife camera. However, so far the mole has evaded detection.
In fact, it seems to be taunting us.
For 3 days running there were no new molehills. So I decided to move the camera to a different place in my garden. Lo and behold that very night the mole popped up right in front of where the camera was previously. It’s like it was waiting for me to move the camera. Crafty little critter.
There are now about half a dozen molehills in the lawn and the camera is pointing straight at them. But the mole is still not caught on camera, and it is puzzling.
Maybe the mole moves so slowly that it doesn’t trigger the camera sensors. I don’t know. All we can do is keep the camera out there and hope that the little vandal won’t be able to evade detection forever.
We will catch you one day mole, just you wait! *Shakes fist at nothing in particular*
Conclusion
the Apeman H40 Trail Camera does a decent job at capturing wildlife in the garden. However, if you want crystal clear quality video then it’s probably better to spend a bit more money to get more megapixels. I also wondered whether the sensors are not picking up all movement like with the mole. So to try and get a better picture I bought another camera which has more megapixels and a wider detection field so I might have more luck with that one. I will review it in the near future!
Hiya Alex,
What a brilliant idea….. that camera looks to have taken a good video/picture.
I suppose you don’t think to do it in your garden, I mean its not like taking vids of animals in some african safari, but still interesting to find out what actually goes on in the garden, so a great idea.
I do miss having animals about the house, so nice to watch them outside, doing their thang……
But have adopted a cat recently (although think he has adopted me) he comes to have some supper and is always about when I hang washing out.
I love birds too, in fact all animals, but think birds have really funny faces when ye get up close and are able to have a good look. All my chickens’chicks had names….
When I used to keep chickens, I used to make up stories for them, like “” hey ye seen any sign of the old fella lately” and his pal might say, “Nope, but i think that horrible neighbour made chicken soup the other night, so it could be that we’ll not gonna see him again”……………. or theres a nice bug just to the left of ye there, ye better get it before I do, cos i woke up starvin this mornin…
I mean Omlette and Scrambled were my favourites…..LOL
A really nice post Alex, enjoyed watching and look forward to seeing the next installment….!
Hi Kaz
The video seemed to be clearer during the night than during the day, but it’s not bad. It is interesting to see what happens during the night as I don’t get to see that often. Unfortunately my camera hasn’t captured much interesting recently apart from my dogs and garden birds.
It sounds nice having the car visiting you regularly. He sounds really friendly. Birds can look funny sometimes, they often look startled! And I love it when some of them have crazy hairdos.
I like your stories for the chicks. It’s a cute idea! I hope they appreciated it! I’m not sure whether they would have liked being called Omelette and scrambled though ha ha
Thanks for reading! 🙂
We set up a camera most nights too and capture hedgehogs and foxes but mostly cats! It’s great fun.
I’d love to see some foxes on the camera too but haven’t seen any so far. Fingers crossed they will appear sometime. I hope you see some interesting wildlife on your camera 🙂