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.