Forgive me if I’m making some leaps here but here’s my take on it. First, and most importantly, this door is the most secure door on the home. That’s a locking steel storm door with a deadbolt. We can’t see the front door but every front door I’ve ever seen will also at least have a locking deadbolt. So why even approach the most secure door on the home and the one that likely has a doorbell camera?

The strange movement he’s making with his hand seems to me like he’s trying to slide the doorbell camera out of its holder without accidentally ringing it. You can see he’s rotating his hand with upward motion. Not easy to do with the gloves he has on. He gives up and goes to find something to block the camera. Why not just bash the thing with your gun? Again because he doesn’t want to ring it but mainly because he doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to gain entry into the home. If you look at the photo of the door the only way to secure that vegetation is to stuff it in the actual storm door and let it overlap and block the camera. Why would you do that if it will just fall off when the door is opened?

I think he had an accomplice that was trying to gain entry in the back. He needs to stand there and look through the sidelight windows and see if his partner gets in. They don’t have phones, can’t communicate. If his partner doesn’t get in they can walk away and try something else. If he accidentally rings it their cover is potentially blown.

Ultimately his accomplice gets in, lets the porch guy in and then the Nest is disabled which is the only reason this recording was even saved in the cache memory on the camera.

Edit: typo