Identifying the fate of birds’ nests and the causes of breeding failure is often crucial for the development of conservation strategies for threatened species. However, collecting these data by repeatedly visiting nests might itself contribute to nest failure or bias. To solve this dilemma, automatic cameras have increasingly been used as a time-efficient means for nest monitoring. Here, we consider whether the use of cameras itself may influence hatching success of nests of the Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa at two long-term study sites in northern Germany. Annually between 2013 and 2019, cameras were used to monitor godwit nests. In 2014 and 2019, nests were randomly equipped with cameras or not, and nest survival checked independently of the cameras. Nest-survival models indicated that survival probabilities varied between years, sites and with time of the season, but were unaffected by the presence of cameras. Even though predation is the main cause of hatching failure in our study system, we conclude that predators did not learn to associate cameras with food either when the cameras were initially installed or after they had been used for several years. Cameras were thus an effective and non-deleterious tool to collect data for conservation in this case. As other bird species may react differently to cameras at their nests, and as other sets of predators may differ in their ability to associate cameras with food, the effect of cameras on breeding success should be carefully monitored when they are used in a new study system.

确定鸟巢的命运和繁殖失败的原因对于制定受威胁物种的保护策略通常至关重要。然而，通过反复访问巢穴来收集这些数据本身可能会导致巢穴失败或偏差。为了解决这一难题，自动摄像头越来越多地被用作巢穴监控的省时手段。在这里，我们考虑使用相机本身是否会影响黑尾塍鹬巢穴的孵化成功率在德国北部的两个长期研究地点。在 2013 年至 2019 年期间，每年都会使用摄像头监控塍鸟的巢穴。2014年和2019年，巢穴随机配备或不配备摄像头，巢穴生存检查独立于摄像头。巢生存模型表明，生存概率因年份、地点和季节时间而异，但不受相机存在的影响。尽管捕食是我们研究系统中孵化失败的主要原因，但我们得出结论，无论是在最初安装相机时还是在使用了几年后，捕食者都没有学会将相机与食物联系起来。因此，在这种情况下，相机是收集保护数据的有效且无害的工具。由于其他鸟类可能会对巢穴中的摄像头做出不同的反应，