Filming Nocturnal Wildlife using the Cat S60 Smartphone

A couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to be invited to the launch of the new Cat S60 Smartphone, and even more excited to get to bring one home to try out with the kids for a few weeks. As well as featuring all the specifications you would expect, the rugged build of this new generation android smartphone exceeds military specs, is the first smartphone with a built in thermal imaging technology, and is the world’s most waterproof phone – making it an amazing tool for so many people, and an absolute dream device for a blogging family with an obsession for wildlife and the local lake!

 The revolutionary Cat S60 allows you to see the world from a totally new perspective – with this device you really can capture everything. One great feature of this fabulous phone is that it is waterproof to a depth of 5 metres using it’s unique Lockdown Switch Technology, allowing you to take both photos and video underwater. Check us out using it to film in our local lake. The Cat S60 is also the world’s first thermal imaging smartphone, and frankly this feature is mind blowing!

I have never used any thermal imaging devices before, and was really hoping that I’d be able to use it to locate some of our nocturnal wildlife that we get to see so rarely. Despite that being my main objective, it hasn’t stopped me thermal imaging just about everything – the photo below is of the lane we live on, taken late evening, I had no idea before I tried the Cat S60 that everything was radiating so much heat!

As we hoped, the Cat S60 has been amazing for locating and filming wildlife that we’d never normally get to see – the video below shows a bat flying around our attic. It was pitch black, and although I am sure the bat was aware of my presence, I was able to locate, and film him, without disturbing him in any way.

Without doubt, the most exciting thing about being able to try out the Cat S60 Smartphone and it’s thermal imaging camera has been finding and filming hedgehogs in our garden. Here in the UK hedgehogs are seriously on the decline, and it is a privilege to even capture sight of one of these shy, and rare, mammals. Thanks to the thermal imaging capabilities of the Cat S60 Smartphone we have not only managed to locate and film them, but can now find them easily, and even know which route they take around our garden each night. Being able to see them in the dark, without having to use artificial light, means that we can observe them without causing them any distress, and they seem perfectly happy to go about their business foraging and eating with us just a few feet away from them.