Infra red wildlife camera

Has anyone ever tried to make one of these on the cheap?

I often stay at a friend's place in France and they have deer, wild boar, snakes and other stuff I never see because they tend to hang around/pass through late at night or early in the mroning.

I've seen commercially available ones for £150 and no way I'm paying that but wonder if anyone has any tips for building one that would be triggered by movement and could record onto an sd card or something similar?

Tried searching the net but couldn't see anything helpful

yeah.... wildlife.... right...

But in all honesty, I'd be very keen on finding out if this is possible and what the results are like.

No honest - it's legit ;) There is a meadow nearby and there are loads of animal trails, it'd be great to see what makes them.

I've seen deer nearby but I'm told they come right by the hosue so would love to see them. The best thing is the wild boar. The neighbour has his car damaged by one guarding his babies last year so we know they are nearby - I've just never seen one.

http://geektechnique.org/projectlab/254/how-to-turn-a-digital-camera-into-an-ir-camera
http://www.lifepixel.com/IR.htm

I've no idea if these are what your looking for, any I haven't tried it so can't vouch for them either

http://www.scottcountry.co.uk/

I once met a guy in greenwich park taking some infrared shots. He was using a modified SLR. apparently a lot of digital cameras (perhaps all i'm not sure) have an infrared heat shield infront of the sensor. take out this shield and hey presto infra red camera. The difficult bit is finding a camera that you can do this to and also doing it without killing the camera or getting any dust in anything. He said he sent his away to someone who had a dust free room, air shower and all, to do it for him. Also it can be quite tricky focusing it, though he just had a massive aperture (small f number) and was taking stills. If you've got a cheapy digital camera you don't mind accidently breaking then open it up and see what you can do.

I've just realised that you might just be asking about a infra red tiggered camera in which case this info is useless.

The sensors on most DSLRs have an antiIR coating that protects the sensor.
You can get them moodified but it costs a bomb.
I have an IR filter for my DSLR and it works ok.
You need long exposures and some tweaking after (they are red)

http://www.scottcountry.co.uk/

Yeah that sort of thing only cheap. Basically somethign that will video in the dark to show what beasties are out there.

If you decide to buy a ready made one these are good http://www.kgbcameras.co.uk/cameras/Wildlife-camera.htm

I searched for a wildlife-thread, this seems to be close.
Two pictures -

http://i.imgur.com/JEcqA.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvpllm8RzY1qanrqso1_1280.jpg