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.

Two Roe Deer and a Fox at the birch log

Two Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) at the log this time. If you look carefully at the head of the first animal, you can just make out the buds of new antlers which make very rapid growth around the end of January.

The second animal could also be a buck but no clear view of its head.

Both of them pull at the brackets this time but they are still not to their liking.


This Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) also passed by, using the same trail as the hare and pine marten have previously.

Roe Deer investigating Birch Bracket Fungi

Just over a year ago I came across this Birch log with bracket fungi which were being eaten by animals unknown. At the time all the fruiting bodies had been reduced almost to a stump.

I left a camera over them on the off-chance that I would capture an image of whatever was responsible and although squirrel, badger and pine marten visited the log, none were observed feeding.

Visiting again this year I found many more fruiting bodies but so far, little evidence of feeding.

This time I seem to be ahead of the game so I set up another camera four days ago, in the hope that it will confirm what animal or animals are feeding on these brackets.

I checked the camera today for the first time and discovered that a roe deer had visited and sniffed at the fungi, but without feeding, a little over an hour before I arrived.

The camera is set to shoot a jpg file and then a thirty second video without a trigger delay. Left shows the deer heading to the log and two seconds later the video below shows it nosing at the fungi before moving away again.

Maybe the fungi are not quite right for eating yet or maybe its another animal responsible, but whichever, the camera will stay on site until I have an answer.

Buzzard, Roe Deer, Hooded Crows and Jays at remote camera in Dec 2011

This is a video composite of activity at the remote camera referred to in the last two posts.
The time and date settings are not correctly set so please ignore them.

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

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