There are just too many holes, cracks and crevices where wildlife can hide from me. Therefore, I got myself an endoscope, but not a medical kind - I might intrude into the lives of our local wildlife but not into their bodies! The kind I got is also called a borescope and is advertised as an industrial inspection tool for checking pipes and machinery, but to me it seemed to have potential for wildlife watching. I ordered it online and received it within two days, only costing me 800 baht [$25]. It has a two-metre long flexible cable that is stiff enough to hold its shape. It plugs straight into my phone with a free app that has a live-view to take photos or video and there's a light on the end with dimmer control. It works best up close and personal with an ideal range of between just 2 and 10 centimetres.
My first objective was to get a good look at the tokay geckos living behind our drainpipes. I keep hearing them calling and getting glimpses of them, and there is a line of eggs in the corner that I have been watching slowing growing for at least two years but getting a good view of what was going on behind those pipes was proving difficult.
I found that if I approached carefully with the endoscope I could often get the camera lens very close and I'm very happy with what I saw. The video I got was always brightly lit and in the sense of showing things I couldn't see before is wonderful. However, the high definition video is not what you would usually expect from HD – it is pixellated and actually looks more like standard definition upsized to HD and the files it produces are suspiciously small. But the amazing colours of these lizards do show up beautifully as do all the lumps and bumps of those reptilian scales.
I knew there were young tokays behind those pipes but now I know there are 3 small babies, a juvenile and two adults, although they are not always there at the same time, especially the older ones who tend to turn up in the afternoon, if at all. If I pushed the endoscope too quickly or jerkily they would often scamper away but with care I could get much, much closer than I had ever managed to before with any other camera. They do not seem overly threatened by this thin camera although they did get a little defensive close to their eggs.
In practical terms, I found that unless the camera end was braced against something like a wall or pipe then the movement was too much to take good video but if it is only being used to look then that's not a problem. It was steadier if held by the camera itself but that's not always an option. The other slightly frustrating thing I found was trying to keep the camera oriented how I wanted it to be hence all the funny angles in the images. Unfortunately, it also does not record sound which I guess is just not important for its original purpose. I would have loved to record the sound as well as the video of the adult barking at the endoscope when I pushed it too close to the eggs.
Overall, there are a number of limitations but as a handy piece of kit that did not cost much it has expanded my ability to poke around seeking out wildlife and I would recommend one of these endoscope/borescopes to anyone who shares my interest in the wildlife around us.
