SmallMammalCam

This is National Mammal Week so it is a good time to show a few mammal pictures.  When I wrote about the small mammal camera box a few weeks ago it was about 5m inside the small copse in my garden.  The camera was seeing bank voles, wood mice and shrews every day/night.  After that I moved it about 10m, so it was now 5m into the meadow.  The clientele changed immediately and the wood mice stopped coming.  The bank voles and shrews still turned up regularly but the new arrival was a field vole.  The noise on the video is rain on the roof of the box.

The next video shows the difference between a bank vole and a field vole.  The latter is larger, greyer, has a shorter tail and has flatter, furrier ears.

Bank voles usually visit the box one at a time.  If there is more than one it can lead to a bit of conflict.

The other regular visitor was a common shrew.  It is hyperactive compared with the voles - the video is at normal speed.

I then moved the box back to the edge of the meadow and the copse and the wood mice immediately reappeared.  Being mainly nocturnal they show up in infrared recordings.

I was surprised that the mice don't want to venture even 5m into the meadow, and that the field voles won't go 5m into the wood.  The bank voles and shrews are happy wherever the box is.

The main reason for having the small mammal camera box is to try to film a weasel but so far no joy.  I have seen the weasel this week near the gate so I have moved the box over there and fitted larger entrance pipes in the hope that might entice it in.  We'll see.

KingfisherCam

I have a new target for the trail camera.  A few weeks ago I put in a stake to support a camera to watch for otters and noticed that a kingfisher was using it as a perch for fishing.  So I put in another stake for another camera to watch the first stake.  And this was the first recording.

If you enjoyed that, watch the second recording.

All the videos on this blog are embedded from YouTube (as Google owns both Blogger and YouTube) but fortunately you don't have to put up with adverts.  The image quality is limited although it is fine for most things.  As an experiment I have uploaded a slightly shorter version of the same video to Vimeo, which should be better quality.  (I have also learned how to embed it in the blog.)  It took ages to upload on my BT SuperSlow internet connection but here it is to see if we can tell the difference.  The original quality is amazing.

  

Since then there have been several more recordings but that is the only one so far where the kingfisher dived to catch a fish and returned to the post with it.  In the latest recording the kingfisher dived but went elsewhere with the fish (if it caught one).

Here are a couple more videos.

The last one was recorded in a gale.  Although it doesn't look it, this is a relatively sheltered spot and the kingfisher would have been happy fishing here if only some humans hadn't come along.

The camera is 40cm from the post and has a +2 dioptre lens to give good focus.  The only other bird that has triggered the camera so far is a wren.  It landed for just a second or two and looks a bit dowdy after the colours of the kingfisher.  We wrens like to keep a low profile.

A new hobby

This is a bird I have wanted to see for a long time.  A small falcon that specialises in catching dragonflies, the hobby (Falco subbuteo)* is a summer visitor from Africa.  This bird had been putting on a show at East Chevington at Druridge Bay, Northumberland for a couple of weeks.  I was alerted to its presence by Tim W and on the day we went to see it last week the weather was calm, warm and sunny, perfect for dragonflies and perfect for the hobby.

This bird is a juvenile, with only a hint if the rusty red "trousers" of an adult.

Watching the hobby was like watching a small peregrine except that it stayed in view for two hours (and was still flying when I left).  Several times it stooped in a vertical dive like a peregrine, difficult to catch on camera.

The hobby was very acrobatic swerving and diving to catch dragonflies which it ate on the wing.

Like most raptors, the hobby is regularly mobbed by other birds.  This one was given a hard time by crows, gulls and a kestrel.  Sometimes it was chased by the crows and at other times it did the chasing.

Hobbies are rare this far north, as can be seen on the distribution map from the BTO Atlas, although the data are a bit out of date.  This one is probably locally bred.  Climate change is causing northward movement of several dragonfly species and warmer summers may increase overall numbers of dragonflies.  Perhaps this means hobbies will also move north to a take advantage of an increased food supply.

The hobby was last seen on Friday and is now probably well on its way to Africa.  Next on my wish list is an even smaller falcon, a merlin, a bird that stays for the winter.

*  The name Falco subbuteo comes from the Latin falx for sickle, referring to the shape of the wings, and sub, below, buteo, meaning buzzard.  The football game Subbuteo was so named by its inventor Peter Adolph, an ornithologist, because he was refused permission to trademark his product "Hobby".

The latest from OtterCam

It is several months since I posted images from the otter trail cameras so here is an update on recent activity.  I had a camera in this position at the water's edge in the summer with very few sightings of otters.  Recently it picked up this handsome animal at 9am.

As ever, it isn't easy to tell one otter from another, especially on black & white infrared videos. However, in daylight this one has a little pink mark on its nose, pink under the right side of its chin, and white marks around the mouth.

Late last winter I was seeing three otters on the cameras in daylight and it was easy to tell this one was the dog.  This how he looked then - with a less effective lens on the camera.  He still has the same marks so I am sure it is the same animal.

The cameras are currently only seeing one otter at a time and always full grown animals. However, on one recent evening two recordings were made within two minutes and I think they are likely to be different individuals. The first came from the water, left a scent mark and went back in.  Two minutes later an otter hurried down the bank, sniffed the very spot marked by the first, and then followed it into the water.  The "second" otter does look very wet, as if it had just got out of the water, so it is possible it just looped round to the same spot again.

There is a camera in the culvert which records a passing otter several times a week, without me being able to tell which it is, or even if it is the same individual.  One night this week an otter went past with something in its mouth.   It continued past the other three cameras but on all of them it is going away from the camera.  Looking at it frame by frame I think it is carrying a large rat.  I made a second version of the video with three pauses so you can see the rat's tail.  It is interesting that it is carrying prey rather than eating it - perhaps a mother taking food back to the holt?

The last video comes from yesterday at 11am.  Again the otter moves north through the culvert (where it was dark enough for the camera still to be in infrared mode) and three minutes later appears on the other cameras.  From the markings under its chin I think this is the dog again.

There has been no sign of cubs so far this year.  Last year's mother separated from her one surviving cub at the end of November and would ordinarily be ready to mate or already have mated by that time.  Over the winter there were three recognisably different full-grown otters on the cameras which I assumed to be mother, newly-independent youngster, and a dog.  The cameras then picked up courtship behaviour on 12 February this year which looked as though it would lead to mating.  Otter pregnancies last 63 days so a November mating would lead to newborn cubs in January and a mid February mating to cubs in mid April.  Young otters will generally follow their mother around from six months of age so if last year's mother had produced another litter I would have expected to see the youngsters before now.  If mating was in February it may have been a different female and the cubs should appear soon.  Female otters will usually produce no more than two or three litters in a lifetime so it may be that the current resident female isn't that same as last year.  If a cub or cubs show up I'll post the pictures here.

Cohabitation

I noticed a hole in the ground at the edge of my meadow and set a trail camera to see what was in it.  I reckoned whoever was down there could be tempted into view with a few sunflower hearts.  The result was a surprise as there were three different species sharing the hole, presumably with separate living accommodation underground.

I guessed there would be a vole as the hole was connected to tunnelled runs through the grass. Most often the camera shows a bank vole, usually dashing out and back in but sometimes disappearing down the run.

Bank voles move fast, hoping that there isn't a kestrel or a weasel watching.  This was on a different camera with a bit of a green colour cast.

Next to show was a common shrew.  Despite being insectivores, shrews are also keen on sunflower hearts.

And then a field vole.  Not so easy to tell at first because it usually shows up at night, but it is larger than a bank vole with a shorter tail and larger flatter ears.

Here are the three of them at night, plus a less welcome visitor.

The camera usually records the animals one at a time but one day there were several confrontations between a vole (probably the field vole) and a shrew.  Several times the vole blocked the entrance and once it chased the shrew - I have added a couple of slow motion replays because the action is so fast.  The last clip shows the shrew eventually gets in when the vole (probably a bank vole this time) turns its back.

I think this type of cohabitation is not unusual.  A few years ago I put a camera on the entrance to a pile of stone in the copse and recorded bank vole, common shrew, wood mouse and water shrew all using the same entrance.