Demole Squirrel Box

00 How it fits together

01 The box

Reference looks

Lumber is a 1×8 cedar board, which is ¾" × 7¼" actual. All six pieces come from one 6' board with about 13" left over. Sides overlap the front and back edges; the floor sits inside, raised ¼" for drainage.

Cut list — one 1×8 × 6' cedar board

Build steps — box

1. CUTCut the six pieces. Cut the 3" entrance with a hole saw, and drill the four ¼" drain holes in the floor.
2. ROOF HOLEDrill a 1¼" hole through the roof, centered left-to-right and front-to-back. This is the camera's window.
3. ASSEMBLEGlue (exterior glue) and screw sides to front and back with 1¼" exterior screws, predrilled. Set the floor inside, ¼" up, and screw through the sides.
4. ROOFScrew the roof down with 4 screws, no glue, so it comes off for cleaning. Leave the cedar unfinished inside.
5. MOUNTScrew through the 4" back extension into a tree or 4×4 post, box floor about 5' up, within strong Wi-Fi range of the house.

02 The camera

The Pi and camera live in a small gasketed electrical box screwed to the roof. A 2" clear acrylic disc is sealed between the box and the roof hole, so the lens looks down into the box while the electronics stay dry and out of reach of teeth.

Parts list — camera

Build steps — camera

1. FLASHIn Raspberry Pi Imager, choose Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit). In the settings set hostname squirrelcam, your Wi-Fi, a username, and enable SSH.
2. ASSEMBLEConnect the camera to the Pi with the Zero cable (check the contact orientation at both ends before seating it). Drill a 1¼" hole in the bottom of the junction box, line it up over the roof hole, and sandwich the acrylic disc between them in a bead of silicone. Mount the camera face-down over the window; drop in the desiccant; run power through the cable gland.
3. CHECK CAMERAPower up, wait ~90 seconds, then from a computer on the same Wi-Fi:

   ssh <your-username>@squirrelcam.local
   rpicam-hello --list-cameras

   You should see one camera listed (imx708_wide).
4. INSTALL STREAMERMediaMTX streams the Pi camera directly. Download the arm64 build from the MediaMTX releases page:

   VER=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/bluenviron/mediamtx/releases/latest | grep -oP '"tag_name": "\K[^"]+')
   mkdir -p ~/mediamtx && cd ~/mediamtx
   curl -L -o mtx.tgz https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/releases/download/$VER/mediamtx_${VER}_linux_arm64.tar.gz
   tar xzf mtx.tgz

5. CONFIGUREOpen ~/mediamtx/mediamtx.yml, go to the paths: section at the bottom, and replace everything under it with:

   paths:
     cam:
       source: rpiCamera
       rpiCameraWidth: 1280
       rpiCameraHeight: 720
       rpiCameraFPS: 15

   720p at 15 fps is a conservative start for the Zero 2 W over Wi-Fi. Raise it once the stream is stable.
6. RUN ON BOOT

   sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/mediamtx.service >/dev/null <<EOF
   [Unit]
   After=network-online.target
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/home/$USER/mediamtx/mediamtx /home/$USER/mediamtx/mediamtx.yml
   Restart=always
   User=$USER
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   EOF
   sudo systemctl enable --now mediamtx

7. WATCH AT HOMEOn any device on your Wi-Fi, open http://squirrelcam.local:8889/cam in a browser.

03 Watching from anywhere

Tailscale puts the Pi and your phone on a private network. Nothing is exposed to the public internet and no router changes are needed.

1. PIOn the Pi:

   curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
   sudo tailscale up

   Open the login link it prints and sign in.
2. PHONEInstall the Tailscale app on your phone and sign in with the same account.
3. WATCHWith Tailscale on, open http://squirrelcam:8889/cam on your phone. Add it to your home screen for one-tap access.
4. FALLBACKIf the live view won't connect over cellular, use http://squirrelcam:8888/cam instead. It's the HLS stream: a few seconds of delay, but it works on more networks.

04 Food and placement

• What to put in: unsalted in-shell peanuts, black-oil sunflower seed, and some dried corn. A small handful a day keeps squirrels coming back without piling up spoiled food.
• What to leave out: salted or seasoned nuts, bread, and processed food.
• Cleaning: pop the roof off, sweep out shells weekly, and wipe the acrylic window from the inside of the box if it fogs or smudges.
• Placement: floor about 5' up on a tree trunk or post, entrance facing away from the prevailing wind, and in a spot you can see from a window so you can check the camera framing against reality.

05 Grey areas