Phantom Red Squirrel, Pine Marten and Red Deer.

Fast moving Red Squirrel travelling right to left.
Shutter speed was 1/25sec which was too slow to catch
anything other than the squirrels tail.
Notice the blond tail which is a fairly common feature of
red squirrels in this area of Scotland.

End of last week I collected several camera traps that had been set on forest deer trails. Red Deer are regularly culled to help forest regeneration in this area, which makes them nervous and elusive.

I was hoping to get an idea of how many animals were regularly in this section of forest and the video clips below follow on from my post a month ago.

Co-incidentally I discovered two obscure but identifiable reasons for apparent false triggering.

The image on the left is of a passing squirrel, which I nearly missed and the following video shows three frames taken with an Acorn 5210A camera trap, which captured a moving stick in the ground vegetation. Each frame is a centre crop of the

Forest Wildlife in June

No Red Squirrels and still no signs of Wildcat, which I don't expect in this area at this time of year. I've been monitoring trails for deer, which are infrequent because of culling to aid forest regeneration.

Images are all straight from the cameras (Ltl Acorn 5210A and 6210MC) and resized down.

Red deer hind with young calf (Cervus elaphus) still with its spotted coat

Remote Camera results for March 2012

Badger at the test site - Camera Ltl Acorn 5210A

Roe Deer female moving along the trail just before she
stopped to groom. See video clip below.
Camera Ltl Acorn 5210A

I'm still trying to play catchup after a long job in March; which excluded just about everything else and was followed by more time spent on the water issue with the 6210 cameras.

I sent a lot of information to the manufacturers and I'm expecting to hear news about solutions to the problem, sometime this week. There's also an upgrade imminent for the 6210, so hopefully I'll have more to report in a few days time.

I have a number of favourite camera locations around the area such as river crossings and heavily used animal trails which I monitor periodically.

Some I like to keep a camera on almost permanently, and one which has a high Red Squirrel density with a main trail through it, is the site I used to start testing the 6210 and the Bushnell.

Squirrels, Badgers, Pine Marten, Roe Deer, Brown Hare and Foxes can all be seen fairly regularly. The two images on the left and the first two clips in the video below are some of the activity at this location, from this last month.

Clips are from a 5210A, the Bushnell black flash, another 5210A and a 6210MC in that order.

Red Squirrel collecting a Sitka Spruce cone from the forest floor, female Roe Deer that stopped for a groom centre stage, a yearling Red Deer nervously testing the air after crossing a river and a Pine Marten at the ford.

The ford site from the first camera location
Camera Ltl Acorn 6210MC

Pine Marten about to cross the river. Taken from the
second camera location - Camera LtlAcorn 6210MC

The clip of the Red Deer is one of a number of river crossings used by deer which I monitor occasionally; and further down the same river is the location where the Pine Marten crossed, which I refer to as the ford.

One of the entrance holes at the Badger sett by the river
Camera Ltl Acorn 5210A

The images on the left show the ford from two angles. The first camera location looks across the trail and up the river. The second camera location, with the Pine Marten just about to cross, is looking across the river and up the trail.

Badger, Fox and Marten use the ford fairly regularly and sites like this, where trails converge, are a good choke point to monitor.

I'm also hopeful that if Otter are using this river as a highway during the summer, I might capture one on this camera.

This river feeds into a larger river further down and earlier in March, a few hundred metres down river from the confluence, I discovered a new Badger Sett with fresh digging.

The last image shows one of the two holes, both of which are freshly excavated. Cameras indicate that only one Badger is present and I'm hoping it's a sow with young.

This sett is right by the river and one of the Badger's main trails crosses the river, climbs a steep sided gorge into the forest and follows an old fence line which eventually takes her to old pasture and worm heaven.

I have two cameras over the sett, another camera covering the river and another at a latrine on the fence line.

So far the Badger seems to rotate her activity about every two to three days around the different trails radiating out from the sett. I'm due to check the cameras today so more later in the week.

Wildlife reactions to trail cameras

Following on from the last post, I had the ProStalk set up over peanuts in the same area and as well as the squirrel, this was visited by badger and pine marten.

The video clip below shows a badger taking notice of the visible infra red when the camera switched on. Badgers and pine martens don't seem at all bothered by this and after their initial interest, will carry on as normal. Almost invariably, pine martens will come and give the camera a close up inspection and on a number of occasions where the camera has been set close to the ground, they have marked the camera by urinating over it. The first time this happened I thought the camera was a bit sticky when I went to check the card, and afterwards, as I looked at the video clips, I realised why.

This is not the case with other wildlife. Red Deer will always be nervous and shy away from the camera if they come close or it is directly in their path. Urbanised foxes, although nervous, do seem to tolerate the IR glow after a while, but out here where foxes are really wild, all you'll usually see is the light in their eyes as they keep to the edge of the illuminated area and skirt round and away.

Close by another camera caught these Red Deer hinds and I think a yearling calf, in the early morning light.

Deer at Corrimoney RSPB Reserve

Collection of trail camera clips of Roe and Red Deer at three separate locations on the reserve between the 8th and 26th of August 2011

Red Deer Stags (Cervus elaphus) with antlers in velvet

The weather has turned bright, sunny and hot in the last couple of days.

Yesterday morning I got some shots of these Red Deer stags enjoying the fresh grass and trying to stay cool.

Flies were making them very restless.

Their antlers are forming well under a luxurious coat of velvet and should be fully grown in a couple of months.

While the stags are lounging about hinds will be in the forest and on the hills giving birth to their calves.

Red Deer Hind spooked by infra-red LEDs on trail camera.

I moved the trail camera from the Badger Sett a few days ago to investigate a couple of deer trails and this clip is one of the early results.


This Red Deer Hind was heading towards the trail camera in early morning light; which wasn't bright enough to prevent the infra-red illumination from switching on. Like Foxes, Deer seem to be made very nervous on sight of the red glow from the LEDs.

Red Deer Hind

The Red Deer hind was browsing on heath under a cloud of midges and I was camode up on the edge of the bog waiting for a Roe buck when the hind came quietly out from the forests edge.

She was there for a fair time when there was a change of wind direction and she caught my scent, which put her head up (the moment of this shot); but she couldn't figure out where I was. After some hesitation she decided to go back into the trees and drifted off, still testing the air.

I'd been in one position for long enough and had more or less given up on the buck so I stood up. When my head cleared the bracken there was a crash to the right about thirty feet away and I was greeted with the sight of the retreating rear end of the Roe Buck I'd been waiting to see.

Seems to be the way of it with me and Roe deer. I've missed some fantastic shots and never, so far, managed to get one I would want to publish. It'll happen right one of these days and the red hind made it worth the effort on this occasion.