I made a new small mammal trail camera box last year and I have been using it a lot this year, mainly in the hope of seeing a weasel or a stoat but so far without luck. From time to time I put a few sunflower seeds in so that it will smell of mice and voles to attract the predators. The box has seen wood mice, bank voles, field voles, common shrews, pygmy shrews and brown rats, as well as robins, wrens and great tits. The two mammals I am most pleased with are field voles which come in when the box is in the meadow and pygmy shrews which come in if the box is in the copse.
The pygmy shrew is Britain's smallest mammal and is quite widespread but very hard to see. In fact I don't think I have ever seen one other than on a trail camera or in a Longworth trap. It is good to know they are here in the garden even if I don't see them.
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