Monitoring Your Purple Martin Colony With Game Cameras - A Browning Trail Camera Review

Last year I learned a hard lesson.  Never say, "never" when it comes to owls, snakes, racoons, and other predators that could prey on your purple martins.  Never.  As I learned, you don't really know what's going on with your purple martin colony unless you are either sitting outside all night or you have positioned multiple game cameras around your site.  If you ignore the possibility, then you could end up with lots of dead martins and even lose your entire colony.
Sitting in my yard all night was just not realistic for me, so I chose the latter option.   I quickly shopped for game cameras after noticing that my Trendsetter was not filling up like it had in years past and finding a GHO feather in my driveway escalated my sense of urgency.  After reading the reviews for multiple brands and shootout results (good site to see all trail camera reviews here), I decided to try out a Browning Trail Camera - Recon Force XR Series (BTC-2XR).  It has some nice features, including long detection range and the ability to record video.
My purple martin gourd rack - 7-2-2014- 8:20 PM.

My first impression when I opened the box is that the camera is small and compact and the casing has a high-quality, heavy duty plastic feel.  My second impression was, "whoa - this takes a LOT (8) of batteries!".

The Recon Trail Camera User Interface

After loading it with batteries and an SD card, I was able to poke around the very user-friendly buttons and quickly setup the date and time.  I had read about all the features while shopping, but I hadn't realized there were features within features.  Read on to see what features I find most attractive in this game camera.
Features
The camera has 4 capture modes: Trail Cam, TimeLapse, TimeLapse+ and Video Mode.
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The first mode I tried was TimeLapse+.  In this mode you have the ability to select the photo quality (this is important when considering the size of your SD card and how long it will be before you check the card), and the length of the delay between pictures (5, 10, 20, 30 seconds, or 1, 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes).  It seemed like the best option at the time.  Until the batteries died after only 2.5 days.  That mode was deselected after a fresh set of batteries was installed.

Browning Recon Force camera mounted on T-Post, Jan. 2015 - monitoring one of my trails.

Next, I tried Trail Cam mode.  It had all the same photo quality and timing settings available as the above mode.  Additionally, you can also program whether the camera takes multiple shots when activity is detected.  See what I mean about features within features?
Multi-shot =5 is the setting I had it on when I first captured the GHO in action.
http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-night-belongs-to-thee.html
Boy was I shocked, but also pleased that I wasn't going to be shipped off to Looney-Toon land.  My sweet little camera just proved that I wasn't imagining things that weren't happening.
After viewing the pictures of the GHO, I decided to change the camera mode over to Video as I wanted to see all the activity during his attacks.  There is one limitation for video at night - it will only take 10 second videos, even if your video setting is set for longer-timed videos. I was able to select a whole other variety of options for my videos (which you can read about in the extensive product manual for the Recon Force camera here.)  I liked the results so much that I decided to order a few more cameras, since I have 4 purple martin systems to monitor.
After setting up the additional cameras, I captured this video:

There are more videos of the owl attacks here.  The first set of batteries in each camera lasted from the first part of May through the last week of June.  My colony of 75 pairs of purple martins and then their kids triggered on average, 40+ videos per day.  At fledging time (first week of July), I inserted fresh batteries in each camera and as of today, one is at 52% and the others are at 75-85%.
Detection Range
With 4 cameras, I noticed that one camera on the eastern rack was not triggering as frequently as the other 3 cameras.  When I called the Browning service department and explained what I was using the cameras for, they said they were surprised that the cameras were even detecting the owl and birds.  These cameras are really meant for detecting bigger game - deer, turkeys, etc..  I became even more pleased with my choice.  On their advice, I moved the slow camera around and it turned out it was fine, but needed to be a bit closer to my eastern rack to pick up the martins' activities.
Since my target subjects are smaller than the usual game these cameras are used for, their distance from the racks is critical.  The standard IR detection range listed in the manual is 40-45 ft, but since these are smaller subjects, I have mine placed at 19-20 ft from each rack where I have found they work much better.  Bottom line, get them as close as you can, while maintaining your target observing area in the camera view.
Daytime video taken with the Browning Recon Force Trail Camera.

Mounting
The camera comes with a fairly heavy duty 3' strap with a clip on the end that allows you to strap the camera down snug on a tree or post.  The problem I had was there are no trees in my backyard.  We found these handy camera mounts at Amazon and, after screwing 2 short pieces of 2x4s together and putting a T-post mount on the bottom, we were able to move the cameras anywhere in the yard, while mounting them on T-posts.

We found these handy mounting brackets at Amazon.  After nailing 2 pieces of 2x4 together, we mounted a T-post mount on the bottom of the 2x4s and slid the whole thing down on a T-post.

Aiming
The only feature on the camera to help with aiming is a "Motion Detection" feature - you turn it on, then walk in the area you want to monitor and the red light on the front will blink, indicating it 'sees' you.  This works well when using the camera as a conventional game camera.  However, when you want to make sure your gourd rack / martin housing is fully covered in the picture, it means that you have to trigger a picture or video capture, then remove the SD card and go view it on your computer / laptop / tablet.  Not a big deal, but something that I believe should be noted when using them for this hobby.
Price
After comparing all the other game cameras on the market, this camera (at the time I was shopping) was the best price, with the features that I really wanted last year.  At Amazon, the price was $139.99 and they're still reasonably priced at other sites - you just have to shop around.
Problems
I've only had one functional issue with this camera.  After retrieving (going through the proper shutdown first) and viewing the pictures, deleting them on my computer, then re-inserting the card in the game camera, the camera would not automatically start taking the videos again.  It was an infrequent issue, but happened enough to annoy me.  I would have to reboot it by ejecting the batteries, waiting 10 seconds, then reinserting them and turning it back on.  This is a real pain in the patootie, especially when the cameras are on these mounts.  That brings me to my second issue which has to do more with the design.  When the camera is screwed on a mount such as the one in my picture, the batteries cannot be ejected until you remove the camera from the mount.  Poor design in my opinion.  Especially after you've gone to all that trouble to get your camera perfectly aimed at just the right spot.
Back to my first issue though.  I've learned through Bing searches that camera lockup is a problem experienced across all game camera makes and models.  The problem can be caused by the SD card.  These cameras have a "Delete All" feature in them that deletes all the pictures and also re-formats the card for that camera.  Since I had never used that feature, the cards had never been formatted for the Browning cameras.  Two weeks ago, I started testing with the camera to reformat the cards after I viewed the pictures and so far, I have not experienced any more lock-ups.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I'm very hopeful for this solution.
I've recently captured a fox and a coyote on video also and while I was thrilled with the actual capture, I was disappointed that the video of the fox was a bit overexposed in the middle.  I did send my concerns and the video to Browning and they mentioned that the grass is probably causing some reflection with the IR flash and to rotate the camera away from it some.  The IR flash illumination range is 100' and with something only 8-10' away, I will probably get a lot of brightness.  That sounds about right to me.  The instructions do say to have the camera mounted only about 3' high and to be fair, I have these cameras mounted about 5.5' high and they are pointed downward.  Not an optimum viewing or detecting angle.  I will be testing with lowering the cameras and re-pointing them on my trails over the next few weeks.
Coyote on the trail:

Fox on the trail:

Overall Impression
Unfortunately, I have not been able to compare this brand / model of cameras against other manufacturer's cameras.  I tried the first one and liked it enough (especially when it was able to detect exactly what I suspected), to order 3 more.  If I had had more time to test other cameras, I might have found a better camera, but I also found that other cameras that are rated a bit higher also cost more.  As with everything else, it's a balancing act with how much money you're willing to spend and your specific needs.  For now, these cameras are exactly what I need.
I would give this camera an overall rating of 7.5 out of a possible 10, because of the problems I've described.  The Browning service department has also been very responsive to my questions and even call me back when I leave a message.  To me, service with any company is a huge determining factor and on this, I would give them a rating of 10 out of 10.
Check out the TrailCamPro site - they have great shipping, free 90-day returns and extended warranty options also.