sorry been a few days of craziness dealing with clients. but to answer a few questions posed here will hopefully clear things up a bit.
"you could just do it manually, these are birds.. they aint going to kill you or steal your shit, so dont you think you've spent enough money already?

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These birds are crafty who knows what they will swipe next.... but in reality just like the past few days I'm not always around and it is fun to see what they are dragging out of the lake when fishing or to see what is going on in the next.
"You'll get much higher quality shots with a DSLR and good telephoto lens. I'd put my money there rather than a bunch of security cameras. Cams can be interesting at night, you might see some more reclusive animals."
you are absolutely 100% correct about this and I have a full frame and hopefully soon large format camera for stills but that still doesn't help if i am not around.
"isint what they invented game cameras for? i mean the'll run for ages off batteries strapped into a tree, yeah its not realtime.. but if you could see it in realtime you'd not be asking for auto-tracking nonsence right?
the only security cameras with birds I ever see is nests/roosts, and thats kinda a captive audience worth the trouble of getting realtime video from."
Yes game cameras work, but lets be honest with those you normally end up with photos that look like they were taken with an old motorola razr flip phone. Plus the fact of placing it in the tree or somewhere that would allow a shot where they normally sit would be a monumental task itself. The deer not so much they like to chill out. No it is not realtime however because of the movement of the critters trailcams IMHO are not what I want.
I am leaning towards having 1 PTZ with several other cams triggering it. any suggestions on reading up having 1 camera alert a second cam as I've not done that yet.
thanks for the help all