2021 End of year review - Day 7

This is the seventh and last video in my end-of-year review and is my favourite video of the past year.  The mother was moving her two very small cubs during the daytime.  They could only just walk and couldn't climb the ramp so I think she was concerned for their safety in the previous holt and was moving them to a better hideout.  The cubs didn't show up again on the cameras for another six weeks and even then they looked small.  When I first saw this I was worried the mother wouldn't come back for the second one before end of the 60s recording and they were too far away to re-trigger the camera.  Fortunately she was just in time.

2021 End of year review - Day 6

Nearly all my trail camera subjects are mammals so I though we ought to have one that isn't.  The latest sparrowhawk is reluctant to sit on my sparrowhawk perch and prefers to sit in ambush lower down, in the shelter of the blackcurrant. I can't see him well from the window so I put in a trail camera in October to see what he was up to.  He doesn't do much in this video.  In fact he doesn't do much a lot of the time.  He needs to eat about three small birds a day and when he has done that he can take the rest of the day off and sit around, looking after his feathers and keeping out of trouble.

2021 End of year review - Day 5

Another multi camera otter video for the fifth end-of-year video, but this time infrared.  This was the newly independent cub last January.  Four cameras were looking downwards as the otter came up and one was looking back the other way at the top of the bank.  The lighting is particularly good in the middle with three cameras illuminating the scene at the same time, something that has since led me to experiment with additional infrared lighting.

2021 End of year review - Day 4

Day four of my end-of-year review.  This video was in a small mammal box I made for the trail camera.  Its main disadvantage is that the animals run along it towards the camera and very quickly go out of focus.  (The newer replacement sets the camera a bit farther away and the orientation encourages the animals to stay in focus.)

The main daytime visitors to the box were bank voles and these two were fighting over access to the food. Fortunately they are different colours so we can easily see which is which.

2021 End of year review - Day 3

This is day three of my end-of-year review.  There is no particular reason why otters should be mainly active at night but a thousand or two years of human persecution have probably changed their behaviour.  Otters are elusive creatures at the best of times so it is real thrill to see one in daylight.  Even the trail cameras, away from human activity, still record most of their images in black & white at night.  Last winter there were several recordings of daytime action, including this video of an otter breaking the ice to get into the water, recorded on three adjacent cameras in January.

2021 End of year review - Day 2

This is the second of my top seven 2021 videos.  I had seen a weasel running in and out of the garden in August so I set up a trail camera on a path in the meadow.  Three times in the next few days the weasel ran past carrying its prey, first a field vole, then a bank vole, and last a wood mouse.  It was so fast that I first thought on the camera's small review screen that they were blank recordings.  I added a 1/10 slow-motion replay to make more sense of the images.

2021 End of year review - Day 1

My end of year reviews have usually been posts of my favourite photos between Boxing Day and New Year.  This year it will repost my seven favourite videos, one each day, so I am starting early.  The videos all appeared on this blog during 2021 and are in no particular order.

The first is a video recording made through the kitchen window in June.  Merry Christmas.

OtterCam in December

The otter cub is now on its own, although it is still in the territory.  I last saw mother and cub "together" in mid November although even then the cub was trailing a long way behind, testing mother's patience.  The water level in the culvert was high in late November and the camera has difficulty detecting a swimming otter with just its nose and ears out of the water so there were few recordings.  Since then I moved the cameras to a small gully at the edge of the lake.  I had many good recordings there last winter but nothing when I tried this autumn.  Now, however, the camera is again seeing otters every night.

There is a spot a metre or two from the water's edge that they use for scent marking.  Every time an otter passes it pauses to have good sniff to find out who else is out and about, and often leaves its own message.  This is the dog.

The cub is less used to the cameras and pauses to sniff those as well.

Here is the cub going down the bank, still calling its mother, although there was no other otter recorded for several hours this time so she wasn't nearby.

And a very interesting sequence from a couple of days ago.  The dog otter went down the bank and again sniffed the message board.  As he turned towards the camera we can see he has a wound or scar near his left ear, or possibly part of his ear missing, presumably as a result of fighting with another otter.

(I have checked back through other recent recordings but there isn't another clear view of his left ear to tell how recent the injury is.)  He left the scene stage left and two minutes later another smaller otter came out of the water, sniffed, and went up the bank.  They must have been aware of each other - perhaps the smaller otter was waiting for the dog to move on before leaving the water.

And finally, a distant cousin of the otters, another mustelid, dropped by to see what had been going on but decided against going for a swim.

These videos were all recorded with a +0.5 dioptre lens on the trail cameras.  I hope the quality is OK once they have been downsized by YouTube and Blogger because the originals are really sharp.

WrenCam

I live in hope of another visit from a weasel to the trail camera box but for the moment it is nearly all wood mice.  The bank voles seem to have given up after realising there was no free food on offer but wood mice call in every night just to check.  This visitor made a welcome change.  Perhaps I should have called this post TrogTrogCam.

Through the kitchen window

I could hear the crows and magpies complaining when I was standing in the kitchen this morning but I couldn't see what they were upset about.  I knew it wasn't the sparrowhawk because the small birds seemed unconcerned.  Then suddenly a buzzard landed right in front of me.  I grabbed the nearest camera and just had time for this photo before it flew off, pursued by the corvids.

This is only the second time I have seen a buzzard in the garden, although they often fly overhead.  The last time was in the very cold winter eleven years ago but that one was at the top of my tallest ash tree so there was no photo.

Buzzards are birds of moorland and farmland and are rare garden visitors, so they don't feature in the data summaries from the BTO Garden BirdWatch.  The population has increased ten-fold over the last 40 years and they are now our most abundant raptors.  This graph is from the BTO Bird Trends.

This graph from the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey shows the population growth in the North East so maybe I won't have to wait another 11 years for the next visit.

An update from OtterCam

It is a couple of months since I reported on the activity on OtterCam.  I have kept one camera in the culvert all the time because it is the most reliable place to see which otters are out and about, although it often doesn't show much in the way of interesting behaviour.  It is also the one place that seems to be free of rats - elsewhere they can trigger dozens of recordings every night.

The one surviving cub is still with its mother but is now about 11 months old so it may be encouraged to seek its own way in the world fairly soon.  In early October it was still usually close behind mother, as seen in this video.

Later in October junior was still in tow but was very distracted by something in the culvert, perhaps a strange smell.

Three hours later they returned but this time the cub was four minutes behind and was whistling loudly as it hurried to catch up.  There is a jump in the video as the cub has to re-trigger the camera.

In November the cub has been consistently farther behind and doesn't appear in the same 20s video clip, but triggers the camera separately as it hurries to catch up.  Here the mother is waiting and listening intently but eventually moves on, either not wanting to wait or because she can hear the cub is following.

The camera also saw a large single otter apparently fishing in the culvert on two consecutive days, although its prey is too small to be identified.  My guess is that it was catching small fish.  This may be a dog otter.

I will try an extra camera position soon to see if I can pick signs of the cub becoming independent.

A fox gets blown away

Foxes hate windy weather.  They can't hear because of the noise and can't smell because the wind swirls around so they are deprived of their two main senses and feel vulnerable.  Add in horizontal sleet so they can't see properly and life becomes very difficult.  Last night we had a red warning for the winds in Storm Arwen of over 60mph (100kph) which were accompanied by driving sleet.

This fox turned up early because it was hungry but it gave up and ran off after a few minutes.  You can see in the videos how its ears are flattened and it is constantly trying to look for danger.  There was no external microphone, for obvious reasons, so the sound is as recorded inside the double-glazed door.  This was a few hours before the storm reached its peak and I didn't see another fox all evening.  Tonight will be colder but much less windy.

Fox News

The foxes are now looking wonderful in their new winter coats.  They are generally here only one or two at a time so it hasn't been easy to check on who is still in the family group, added to which this year's cubs are now full grown.  I was away for a short while so they didn't get fed for a few nights recently.  Getting home late in the evening I put out some food and this was the scene about 20 minutes later, filmed on the iPhone.  The dog fox is at the back with two of this year's cubs.

Next time I looked the dog and one cub had gone and a smaller cub and another with a dark (perhaps dirty) face had arrived, so that was five foxes within the first hour.

Not included were the alpha female, who is a regular, and the two yearling vixens.  I haven't seen them for a few weeks so they may have moved on.  Also not included were another smaller cub (there are at least two) and one with a very distinctive scar on the haunches, both of whom are also recent regulars.  I think the family group is at least 7 and maybe up to 10 strong at present but it will get smaller as some of the younger foxes disperse.  I presume the alpha pair are planning to hold the territory next season, which would be the vixen's third and the dog's second.

Although the 2021 cubs look fairly alike (except that they come in two sizes), I can generally recognise individual foxes. As an example this is the alpha male

and one of his offspring from this year.  Although they are alike the dark facial markings and the colouring on the foreleg are quite different.

This is the alpha female who I recognise at a glance from her muzzle shape, body shape and ear position.

And this is one of the larger full grown 2021 cubs.

Here are a few more family portraits, first the alpha female and male and then some of the youngsters.

While the cat's away, the mice will play

Or in this case, while the sparrowhawk is away all the small birds will make the most of it.  The trail camera is set up to watch the new sparrowhawk perch in the kitchen garden but it records a lot of other birds while he is away.  Even when the coast is clear they are still very much on edge.  Here is a taste.

There is a surprising amount of activity after dark, including this rather indecisive wood mouse.

A grand day out

It seems ages since I last went for a wander up the coast, something I used to do very regularly at this time of year before the pandemic.  I started at Boulmer and walked north from the village along the beach as the tide was coming in.  The weather was sunny and calm with a flat calm sea.  It is a great place to see waders and here are some of those I came across.

First bar-tailed godwits.  These have been in the news in the past week after one was tracked flying 8108 miles non-stop from Alaska to Australia in 239 hours (almost 10 days) at an average speed of 34mph.  The bird was heading for New Zealand but had to divert over 1000 miles to Australia after encountering headwinds, which makes me wonder how it knew Australia was there.  The godwits I saw are winter visitors from Siberia.

I saw and heard lots of redshanks who know just how deep they can go without getting their feathers wet.

These two spent several minutes fighting but it was difficult to see what it was all about as there was plenty of space for both of them.

Other waders were ringed plovers,

knots,

sanderlings,

dunlins (not a great photo but in for completeness),

turnstones,

and purple sandpipers.

The curlews stayed on the shore as long as possible but were eventually driven into nearby fields by the rising tide.

This is an oystercatcher with a knot and a godwit.

Ducks on the sea were eiders,

wigeons,

and mallards.

One very surprising sighting (to me at least) was little grebe fishing in the sea.  Other birds on the shore or close by included grey herons, carrion crows, rock pipits, pied wagtails, wrens, robins, linnets and house sparrows, some of which I may go back to photograph another time.  Oh, and plenty of seagulls!