RoeDeerCam in the woods

Most times when you see a roe deer in the woods it is watching you intently, having seen/heard/smelt you before you spotted it, or it is running away.  This time I did something different with the trail cameras and it allowed me to get a few videos of the deer when they were completely relaxed.  I set up two cameras on a tree beside a trail that looked as though it was in use and left them there for five days and nights.  There was less traffic than I had hoped but I did get a few clips of the deer, even if they mostly didn't stick to the trail and so weren't walking or looking in the right direction. Deer are the most unpredictable of the animals in the woods as they wander all over and won't take any bait, preferring to find their own food.

Here are three deer, walking across the trail and not along it (!) - a doe, a buck and a young doe, dawdling.

Some of them are looking a bit scruffy as they start to moult their dark winter coats.

The resolution of the cameras is less good at night when they use their own infrared light source.

This buck has uneven antlers so he should be easy to identify if I see him again.

On the last morning there was a brief fall of snow.  Here are images from both cameras.

This was my set-up.  I had two cameras at about (my) knee height which was perfect for the roe deer which are small, roughly the size of a sheep.

When I am targeting smaller animals such as foxes and badgers I put the cameras on the ground.  There were several clips with a fox or a badger but the videos weren't great because of the camera height.

On several clips there was no animal to be seen but the audio revealed heavy breathing, snuffling or footsteps as something, probably a badger, investigated the camera out of view.  One of the cameras has a low-glow infrared source meaning there is a faint visible light.  This fox turned round and saw it, took fright, and ran off.

Other sightings (not shown) were pheasant and American grey squirrel.  Most exciting of all was a tawny owl which pounced on something immediately below the camera.  It must have been so quick that it didn't trigger the camera until it had already landed.  It had a quick look around and flew off but was too close and so out of focus.  If only it had landed a metre or two farther back it might have been a good picture.

Maybe next time.