take your lens cap off, it works better.

Nope, no advice at all. Get a heavy duty tripod maybe so that you're not all shaky when you are freezing your tail off.
Can you take stills from it or individual frames do you know. Back in the OLD days, that was the biggest issue I had. Too many cmaeras. DId I want video of the deer, or a still. Nowasays with digital etc, I don't think that is as much of a problem.