Introduction

Since the dawn of human history, cultures have been intrigued by the behaviour of animals (Aelian 2011). Through observations of animal behaviour, the primitive man attempted to immortalise what he observed (Marini et al. 2010; Valenzuela et al. 2015). Examples include animal motifs in temples and tombs, depictions of birds and mammals that accompany ancient idols and gods (Houlihan 1986; Russell and During 2006; Pande and Pande 2016) and that to date influence human thought, superstitious beliefs and daily practices (e.g. Reddy and Yosef 2016). People possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature (Manfredo 2008). Some behaviour or appearance of animals may trigger a positive emotional response (Wilson 1989). Even today, we are surrounded by animal motifs in everyday life, such as on notes, coins, stamps, company logos, commercial brands, what can be useful and applied for the conservation of biodiversity (Clemmons and Buchholz 1997; Caro et al. 2012). A new approach to nature conservation is the concept of digital conservation, which aims to use the new technological achievements for the protection and monitoring of wildlife (Arts et al. 2015; van der Wal and Arts 2015). The primary approach of digital conservation is open to the collaboration of scientific researchers, non-governmental organisation and citizen science in nature conservation (Arts et al. 2015). Technological development and public access to the Internet during the last decades have opened the temporal and spatial boundaries and made the world a global village with a rapid flow of information where electronic media has rapidly increased the accessibility and immediacy of information (Valcanis 2011). Since the emergence of technological innovations, such as smartphones and drones, people can at any time share information and post photos and short videos from almost anywhere in the world. For instance, online watching of birds in nest boxes may be important in the context of conducting research but also in education and public outreach (Zárybnická et al. 2017).