River survey for Trail Camera locations

Pools and falls in a defile at about 250 metres

I've been planning a camera survey of a mountain river bordered by a mix of farm land, forestry plantations and open hill. Yesterday I spent several hours in its middle section, looking for camera locations.

The river rises on the hill at a little over 400 meters, crosses the forest boundary at 300 meters and runs into the main river at 100 meters above sea level.

A number of tributaries and flushes increase its volume as it travels through a series of defiles, ravines, small oxbows and waterfalls.

The banks have, among others, a flora of Heath, Grass, Bilberry, Birch, Rowan, Scots Pine, Larch, Alder and away from the banks are plantations of Scots Pine, Larch, Norway and Sitka Spruce; with rough grassland at the river's lower end.

A pool at the bottom of a small rapid with what might
be an otter trail going down the bank to the water's edge

A well used deer trail parallels the river for most of its middle section with other trails going to river
crossings as well as in and out of the forest. In various places trees have fallen across the river which make potential crossings for cats and mustelids; and in one place a trail which looked typical of Otter going down into a pool.

I've recently had cameras out near the lower, middle section of the river and recorded Badger, Pine Marten, Red Squirrel, Red Deer, Roe Deer, Buzzard, Jays and Hooded Crows.

I now plan to trap the whole section over the next three to four months, ever hoping to find evidence of the elusive Scottish Wildcat or as it is often referred to these days, the Highland Tiger.

Remote camera results for December 2011

Camera trap location 1

This year, although I'll still be surveying red squirrels, I'm also going to be setting camera traps through a cross section of the glen, in the hope of finding evidence of wildcat.

I've already seen a large cat hunting a hare which, although I couldn't verify this at the time, may well have been a hybrid if not a pure wildcat. I've also found other signs which suggest at least one large cat in this area and I'm eager to prove it one way or the other.

Sitka Spruce cone predation by Red Squirrel

The camera I've chosen to use is the Ltl Acorn 5210A 940nm and for the last couple of months I've been testing a number of these in different environmental conditions to get to know their operational parameters.

So far they're proving to be a good choice, not least because they're about half the price of any other comparable camera; and on my budget that's an important consideration. I'll post more about their performance at a later date.

Roe Deer

The location pictured above left is adjacent to a deer trail and I also noticed squirrel feeding signs close by, so I set two cameras, positioned at different angles across the trail. One covered the area where the squirrel had been feeding and the other covered a large stump, baited with meat and bone.

(I made a mistake with the menu settings on one camera so the moon, date and time info' is incorrect)


The images on the left and below show a selection of the results over a ten day period in December.

Common Buzzard 

Red Fox

The final tally was Chaffinch, Robin, Jay, Hooded Crow, Common Buzzard, Roe Deer, Red Fox, Red Squirrel and Pine Marten.

The image of the Buzzard (left) is an enlargement from the centre of the frame.

The image of the Red Squirrel (bottom) is from the camera with the correct moon phase, date and time settings and it's worth noting that with shots like this, where the animal is moving quickly across the frame and close to the camera, I wouldn't normally expect to get a record; because the animal would be gone before the camera triggered.

I would hope that this is an indication of the effectiveness of the side prep sensors which, at this time, are unique to these cameras.

Both cameras were set to shoot firstly a still image and then video; and by the time the video started the squirrel was nowhere to be seen.

I'll post a video composite tomorrow as an example.

Red Squirrel