The Trail camera is the HC800A and works well in very low light. It uses 8 AA batteries in three recording sessions which recorded 245 clips each 30 secs long, maybe because a branch moved a lot and triggered shots without any wildlife being there. I have just ordered a 6v power supply so will set the extension lead up in the garden. The charger cost £10 but the rechargeable batteries and charger would cost £30+ and take 12 to 24 hours to recharge.

It takes half a day to go through the clips and needs a working knowledge of a video editing prog, many free ones, I use Serif MoviePlus v6 which I think is free and unsupported now.

Great fun but time consuming, and I wish I had a better remote for my conventional video camera so I could record the bullfinches and tree creeper when the decide to visit. Auto recording on the trail camera would have 250 clips with only one or two being the clips I want.

One problem with this sort of camera is that it does not have a viewfinder or real time viewing so I have sometimes thought it is pointing in the correct direction, only to realise in the morning after that something was not in the frame. A remote manual trigger would be useful so the clips could be longer and triggered when I want them – some clips ended after the preset 30secs just as some interesting action happened. I need to experiment with the sensitivity of the movement sensor to see how far it can be from the source so that it has a wider field of view for some types of recordings.

You can place the camera on a box or table but a camera tripod is best, or a kit of the attachments that can clasp onto branches etc. Be aware that any branches or leaves that move will start recording a clip.