BankvoleCam in the garden

I put a trail camera in the woodland part of the garden again last night.  It recorded over one hundred 30s clips, this time mostly of a bank vole.  A lot of the time the animal was just sitting eating but here are the best three clips.  Bank voles (Myodes glareolus) do everything at high speed and, like all small mammals, seem to live life on a different time scale to ours. They are also constantly on the lookout for danger - foxes, stoats, weasels and tawny owls are all partial to bank voles and I have all of them in the garden as well.

Compared with the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) the bank vole has a blunter nose, smaller ears and smaller eyes.  I think there is more than one animal here as the one in the second clip looks smaller.  In the last clip it shows its tail, which is over 50% of the length of it body (proportionately longer than in the larger field vole or short-tailed vole, Microtus agrestis).

The camera is a Bushnell NatureView CamHDMax fitted with a close focus lens.  I am impressed with the image quality but it is difficult to aim it precisely at such close range which is why the vole is a bit too close to the bottom of the image.  I hope you enjoy the videos.  Next I want to catch a shrew.

Grey seals on the Farne Islands

This was my first autumn trip to the Farne Islands.  I go out once or twice each summer, mainly to see the birds but we usually get to see a few dozen grey seals as well.  The first seal we saw on this visit was asleep at the top of steps on Staple Island, at least until we approached.

As we got nearer it set off down the steps but was then put off by the drop to the water because the tide was at it its lowest.  It decided not to dive into the shallow water and was relieved when we moved away.

As we toured around the islands we saw hundreds and hundreds of seals.  They were spread along the rocky shores of most of the islands.  The Farne Islands population is about  5000 - 6000 at this time of year and I think we must have seen most of them.

Although they are called grey seals there is great variation in their colour.  Males are larger and darker in colour than females.

Some of them were very interested in the boat and kept a close eye on us as we passed.

Others hardly bothered to look up.

Grey seal pups are born from September to November but there had been only a few when I went out last week. Neonatal mortality is high - around 30% - and several of the earliest born this year did not survive.  The first one we saw was newborn and was lying not far from its mother above the high tide line.

I expect several of the seals lower down the beach are females due soon to give birth.

Last year there were 1500 pups.  About 1000 survive the first month and around 750 live beyond a year.  A few metres from the first live pup we saw was one which didn't make it.

A bit farther on was another newborn, again asleep above the high tide line.  It is top left in this photo.

Many more pups will be born in the next very few weeks.  Newborn pups weigh about 14kg, four times heavier than a human baby, and they are milk fed for only 18 days, in which time they quadruple their weight.

Adult survival is 20-25 years for males and 30-35 years for females so for those pups that make it through the first year the prospects are good.

Good evening Mr Fox

Or I suppose it might be Mrs Fox. The foxes come to the back door every night and have been arriving earlier and earlier as the days have got shorter - the first is now here by 6.30pm.  I had several family visitors recently and fortunately the foxes put on a good show for them.  Here are a few photos from this week.

I don't know whether the foxes are aware of me.  I expect not although they do sometimes seem to look right at the window, especially when the camera is focussing. 

They are fairly relaxed despite being so close to the house but remain very alert and are constantly looking round into the garden and the wood - probably on the lookout for other foxes.

The photography is challenging as the only illumination is a 60W bulb in a wall light.  It is so dark that the autofocus doesn't work unless I use live view.  The ISO is 12800 or 25600 and the shutter speed is 1/8s at f/2.8.  The photos are a bit soft but really not bad considering.  I have taken a few video clips but they all show a fox chewing peanuts.  Here is one example.  The fox seems to look right at the camera at the end of the clip.

Wasps in the woodpile

I lit the wood-burning stove for the first time last weekend and when I went to get the logs I found a hibernating queen wasp on the first one.

Two logs later I found these two tucked up side by side.

All three are common wasps (Vespula vulgaris).  Notice how their antennae are folded and tucked inside their front legs and their wings are collapsed and tucked inside the back legs for protection.  The weather has been pretty mild recently so I am interested that they are asleep already.  Thinking about it I suppose there isn't much to eat or much to do so they may as well turn in early.  I don't know if it was a bad year for wasps but there have been very few around the hives this year.

Hungry teenager at the burger bar

I watched this young male eider duck swim the length of the harbour at Seahouses and climb the slipway up to the quayside.  He walked straight up to the burger bar and was rewarded with a few scraps.

Satisfied, he stood around for several minutes before retracing his steps and swimming back out to sea.  I guess he has done this before.

Egrets great and small

I enjoyed watching this little egret (Egretta garzetta) catching fish.  It was standing almost feather-deep in the water and shaking one leg at a time to disturb the fish.  It was catching tiddlers, perhaps minnows or sticklebacks.  The little egret was a very rare bird not so long ago but is now a common sight.

A short while later I had a very distant sighting of a great white egret (Ardea alba) in flight.  This one is still a rare visitor.

Ready for hibernation

There are still a few bumblebees around in the garden but not for much longer.  In the past week I have seen tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum), common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) and buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris), such as this one.

I find bumblebees difficult to photograph.  They are usually head down in the flowers and their black is so black it is a very high contrast with the flowers.  At least at this time of year they don't move as quickly.  This one will soon be asleep until next spring and is already dozy.

Starling air display

Starlings are starting to warm up for their air show season.  This was a fairly small murmuration but fun to watch.  A few jackdaws got caught up in the excitement.

WoodmouseCam in the garden

I put the trail camera out in the garden last night, this time looking for smaller things than the foxes.  There were seventy-eight 30 second recordings, all of a wood mouse.  Most of the time it was sitting chewing, or dashing out of shot.  Here are the best three clips.

A couple of ichneumonid wasps

I came across this little beast a while back but have only just got round to looking it up.  It is an ichneumonid wasp and I think it might be a female Ichneumon sarcitorius.  However, I could be wrong(!) as there are 2500 British species and they are notoriously hard to identify.

Ichneumonid wasps account for 10% of all British insect species and are parasitoids, meaning that they lay their eggs in or on another insect and the larvae eat and kill the host species.

Here is another one I spotted near my bee house in the summer.  It is a female with a very long ovipositor but I haven't worked out which species.  It might be Rhyssa persuasoria, the sabre wasp, but then again it probably isn't.

I found a beautifully illustrated guide to the commoner ichneumonid species from the Natural History Museum which you can download here.