PolecatCam returns

It is just over a year since I first obtained trail camera videos of a polecat.  This is one of our most elusive mammals and is slowly recovering from near extinction.  It is shy and mostly active at night but also inquisitive, so an ideal target for a trail camera.

Like last year, these recordings were made in Allendale in west Northumberland.  This time I am indebted to David Stewart and Fiona Gough for permission to site the cameras on their land. Polecats prefer lowland countryside with a good supply of rabbits so Allendale suits them well.

A polecat is curious enough and small enough to enter the camera box so I set one up.  The recordings were made for 11 nights and like last year a polecat was in on the first night to have look around.  It returned on the second and fourth nights but then lost interest, probably realising that there wasn't going to be anything to eat.  In the video the polecat seemed to pause on its way out and I am pretty sure it would have been leaving a scent mark in the pipe.  That's presumably why nothing else showed up for a week and even then there were only two brief sightings of a field vole.

Another camera was set in a field shelter.  I used a Camtraptions trail camera because of its white light for video but it has a number of technical drawbacks and the pictures were not high quality with a "noisy" image.  However, a polecat was a very regular visitor, probably because there were also lots of recordings of rabbits.

I also set a camera on a bank at the edge of a muck heap which looked as though it had several rabbit holes.  The polecat initially seemed to be scent-marking but then it caught sight of the camera.  It seemed to be very aware of and intrigued by the camera and several times stood up to have a better look - a behaviour I haven't seen before but which is shared by other mustelids.

Polecats were almost extinct in England by the end of the 19th century, mainly because of persecution by gamekeepers.  There was a small residual population in central Wales and in recent decades the population in central and southern parts of England has been recovering. Recovery has been slower in the North but polecats are found in Cumbria and in western parts of Northumberland and County Durham.  I found it difficult to get an accurate picture of distribution but for what it is worth this is the map from iRecord.  It is odd that they don't seem to want to go north of Hadrian's Wall although there are some in north east Scotland. 

Here's a similar map from the Vincent Wildlife Trust which predates the 2024-2025 National Polecat Survey, results of which are due to be published this autumn.

The cameras are still in place so I hope I'll have more images to share soon.

Composite photos from trail cameras

Trail cameras take serial pictures from a fixed viewpoint and lend themselves to making composites of images recorded at different times.  These are particularly useful in showing relative sizes, as in the image above which comes from a couple of years ago.

The photo below is recent and is made from fitting together three slices of the same view with subjects that didn't overlap.  It shows a comparison of the sizes of an otter, an American mink and a stoat, three distantly related species.

The next one compares the mink and the stoat on a different camera, the size difference somewhat exaggerated by the different distance from the camera.

In the examples above the joints between different photos have been removed for effect but I usually leave them to make the point that it is a composite and not a trick photo.  The next three photos from the "weasel box" in my garden compare the sizes of a female stoat (L) with a female weasel in the first two and a male weasel in the third.  They also show fairly dramatically the size difference between male and female weasels.

These also show female (L) and male (R) weasels on different visits to the box. The male is twice the weight of the female.

The last example compares male stoat (weighing 350g), female stoat (250g), male weasel (120g) and female weasel (60g).

I notice that all the animals above are mustelids, perhaps because they are frequent targets of my cameras but also because size comparisons of related species are particularly useful.  I'll see if I can come up with something similar for smaller mammals.

Trail cameras in the wetlands

Gosforth Nature Reserve has a new wetland, created less than a year ago.  The stream flowing into a collapsed culvert was diverted into a series of newly excavated pools and ponds last November.  To start with it ended up looking like a flooded building site but now it already looks as though it has always been there.  Animals and birds took to it almost immediately and in recent months it has been a productive area for my cameras.

Earlier this month I posted a video of the local roe buck wading through the water and said I had never seen him go through the other way.  Only a few days later a doe and her twins did just that.  The mother was wary and crossed not far from the edge.  The kids followed, taking a longer shortcut and were also very uncertain about the depth of the water.  The video is two minutes long but good to watch.  Notice the doe has a new smooth dark winter coat while the kids are still developing theirs.

A bigger surprise was seeing badgers wading through the water.  There were four recordings over two nights and from their sizes it looks like at least two different animals.  The water is deeper farther out and badgers are not tall so I expect they were swimming across before wading out in front of the camera.

The fox, by contrast is not at all keen on getting its feet wet.

The cameras also occasionally see a couple of sparrowhawks.  Judging by their size I think both are female and one is adult and the other a juvenile, so presumably mother and daughter.  They are usually too far away and too fast for a good video so this is the best I can do so far - slow motion is at 1/10 speed.  I am working on getting better pictures.

Garden visitors

Wow this was a surprise.  I have been here 37 years and this is the first time I have "seen" a badger in the garden.  I didn't see it of course but it showed up on the camera by the "weasel wall" in the garden.  It recorded only three videos but was here for at least an hour so I expect it had a good look around.  In the video it was eating something but we can't see what.

I still haven't worked out how it got in and out.  There is a 600mm (2 foot) rabbit fence all the way round and I can't see a hole in or under the fence so the badger must have climbed over.  I am hoping it will return and I'm working on a squirrel-proof peanut feeder to try to tempt it back.

The next morning the camera saw three pheasants, a cock and two hens.  Nine years ago I had a pheasant who regularly came to the door to be fed but there has been only one sighting since, until now.

The next photo is from July but hasn't featured here before.  The fox has obviously spotted the camera.

The camera in the camera box by the gate sees wood mice, bank voles, common shrews and pygmy shrews all the time but last week there was a very curious tri-coloured common shrew which I presume is just a colour variant.

And just earlier this week, a tawny owl showed twice on the weasel wall camera.  The second time it caught a mouse - it's a pity that the mouse didn't trigger the camera before the owl struck but it's still good to see.

There have been very few weasel or stoat sightings in recent weeks so it is good to see something other than American grey squirrels on the cameras.  All these are things I would have missed if it wasn't for the trail cameras.  It's amazing what goes on in the garden when my back is turned.

A new buck on RoeDeerCam

During the rut in July-August we saw the dominant buck chasing off a yearling and since then he has been the only one around.  Until last week that is, when a new buck showed up.  Roe bucks can be identified by their antlers so this one is clearly new.  Below is the dominant resident male with his six point head.

This is the yearling who was chased off a few weeks ago.  He has simple one-point antlers.

And this is the new guy.  He has small forward-pointing brow points but doesn't yet (ie this year) have rear points.

And here he is on video.

Roe bucks aren't territorial at this time of year so I expect he'll be able to stick around.  It will be interesting to see.

The older buck is a creature of habit and he often follows the same route in front of the cameras. He regularly takes a short cut through the water, here picking his way in the dark.

I have never seen him go back the same way.  Here he is again in daylight last week.  His darker winter coat is already nearly complete although he is still a bit foxy red around the tail end.

Making scents of the world

Animals perceive the world very differently from the way we do.  They have better vision, better hearing and a much more highly developed sense of smell.  Mustelids in particular live in a world of scent, using it to advertise their presence and to see who else is about.  The first video, from earlier this week, shows an otter sniffing almost every plank on the bridge to work out who has been there before.

Next a less welcome mustelid.   A male mink scent-marking by body-rubbing, then a female sniffing to pick up scents, and finally the female doing a bit of body rubbing of her own.

A stoat has been a regular on some of the cameras.  It was also sniffing its way around when it came across some mink scat.

Another video from earlier this week: a male weasel went through the camera box at high speed and on his return I am sure he was scent-marking in the tunnel.  He was also making a weasel sound I haven't heard before.  A couple of hours later a female weasel came sniffing through the box and picked up his scent.

Finally, to complete the local mustelid set, a couple of badger videos, although not recent.  First a badger sniffing its way around and seeming to take a particular interest in my scent on the camera.

And a mother scent-marking one of her cubs to make sure it smells like the rest of the family. The cub wasn't impressed.

A new species for the North East

At first sight you wouldn't think it was a ladybird, only 2mm long, dark and hairy.  Once I spotted it I knew I didn't know what it was.  I have seen all but one of the ladybird species recorded in the North East and I knew this wasn't the missing one.  It was tapped from a mature oak in my garden and peering at it in the net through a hand lens I could see it was black with an orange front and orange legs.

Being at home I could bring it in for a better look and more photos but for a while I still didn't recognise it.  There are quite a few rather similar micro ladybirds (also known as inconspicuous ladybirds), all small and tending to be black with orange/red markings but this didn't seem to fit with any of them, partly because most are black underneath.

Eventually the penny dropped and I realised this was Rhyzobius lophanthae, not at all something I was expecting to find.  Also known as the Bristly Ladybird it is originally from Australia and was imported to Europe to control scale insects in horticulture.

Rhyzobius lophanthae was first reported in the UK in 1999 and is now found across the southern half of the country.  This map from iRecord shows the nearest records to mine are 150km south in Beverley and Leeds - all from last year or this.  (The large concentration of reports from Shropshire probably reflects the diligence, enthusiasm and expertise of Maria Justamond who is the county recorder there.  She also wrote the book on UK micro ladybirds and validates ladybird submissions to iRecord.)

Despite its Australian origins Rhyzobius lophanthae was first described in California by a local entomologist who thought it was native.  In fact it was introduced there in the 1890s so clearly people in Australia and the US knew about it earlier.  One puzzle is how mine got here.  It obviously can't be the only one north of Leeds but being only 2mm long and inconspicuous it might easily be overlooked.  I expect this is part of its range expansion, perhaps encouraged by climate change.  I'll be looking a bit harder in the garden now, hoping to turn up something else new.