My Blog List
Saturday, 16 August 2025
Mrs Weasel moves house (and takes the family)
Monday, 11 August 2025
Roe deer on the otter bridge
The trail cameras are set primarily to keep an eye on what the otters get up to but they record whatever comes into view. At the moment fewer than 1% of recordings are of otters. Non-target captures in late spring and early summer were mainly of young birds, especially water rails, moorhens and mallards, but there are plenty of mammals as well. They now outnumber the birds and in perhaps ascending order of size they are common shrew, water shrew, bank vole, wood mouse, field vole, brown rat, grey squirrel, red fox, badger and roe deer.
Deer aren't the most exciting subjects on trail camera because they usually don't do much but the kids are charming. They are now a couple of months old and still have some of their camouflage but they find the bridge a bit of a challenge because it is built rather like a cattle grid. If you have dainty hooves it requires a bit of concentration to get across safely. Here are mother and the twins all managing easily this time.
Here one of the kids has discovered the camera.
Here is one of the twins showing how not to do it. After falling through a couple of times it came back to have think but realised it was left behind and had to try again. You can hear it squeaking as it set off a second time.
The last video shows one of the kids on the bridge. As I said, roe deer don't do much but it is quite relaxing to watch if you have a couple of minutes to spare.
Monday, 4 August 2025
The Greater White-toothed Shrew
The camera box was placed in a scruffy area close to a hedgerow in Elemore Park, only a mile or so from Easington Lane where the original Greater White-toothed Shrew was first recorded. Although it is within Sunderland metropolitan borough it is closer to Durham. A few interesting observations about the recordings: all were in daylight and Greater White-toothed Shrews are known to be mainly diurnal in habit; there were a few Common Shrew recordings but no Pygmy Shrews, a few Field Voles but no Bank Voles; and no Wood Mice, which is a surprise. I had enough videos of Common and Greater White-toothed Shrews to make this short slow-motion comparison video.
I am grateful to Anthony Hindmarch, the Elemore Park manager, for the opportunity to site my camera - we were primarily looking for weasels and voles so at least we found a field vole. I hope to see more Greater White-toothed Shrew videos when I next check the camera and I'll post an update here.
Monday, 28 July 2025
News from OtterCam
OtterCam is in a quiet phase after a very exciting winter and spring. The previous cubs were last seen on 02 May and their mother was seriously courting the dog otter on 04 May. Courtship is said to last three or four days and an otter pregnancy lasts 63 days so if all went according to plan it could be that new cubs were born about two weeks ago. Even so, we won't expect to see them on camera until some time in October.
The cameras have been keeping an eye on things and recorded this video of the female at the end of June, possibly ten days before cubs were due. Otters have two or three cubs which are born at about 13cm in length weighing a bit over 100g (3½oz). So, given a female otter's size (6000g) and body shape, I don't know whether we would be able to tell if this one was pregnant.
The next video was recorded 20 days later, so possibly 10 days or so after giving birth. Again it is very difficult to tell from the video but I just wonder if there is evidence she might be feeding cubs.
In the following week the female turned up four times at this camera point to leave a scent mark. In the same time the dog otter went past just once so I expect he is elsewhere much of the time.
Tuesday, 22 July 2025
Micro ladybirds
The ladybirds we are all used to seeing are often red with black spots, sometimes black with red spots and occasionally yellow with black spots, all shiny. There is another group of smaller ladybirds which are mostly unspotted and not shiny, known as inconspicuous ladybirds or micro ladybirds. They are more difficult to find and often go unnoticed. In the past few days I have come across four of them and have been learning how to photograph them. The most recent find was Scymnus nigrinus which is rare with only a handful of UK records, mostly from East Anglia. I found about ten in a group of small Scots pine trees only a few miles from here. Scymnus nigrinus is very small and is black and so is not an easy subject to photograph. I used a small floating frame in a technique which holds the ladybird between two very thin plastic films without harming it, described in a new book Micro ladybirds of Britain and Ireland by Maria Justamond and David W.Williams. This has the advantage of allowing a good view of the underside as in many of the micro ladybirds the underneath features help with identification. I found the most difficult thing was avoiding reflections from the flash on the plastic and dealing with the very shallow depth of field when looking from the top. Here is how I got on.
So, not too bad considering the ladybird is only about 2mm long and the photos are taken through a plastic film. This is the habitat.
Other micro ladybirds I have seen before are Rhyzobius forestieri, also Australian and also from Mum's garden,
Wednesday, 16 July 2025
An update from WeaselCam
After all the excitement of weasels on the trail cameras here in 2024 I had high hopes for this year but it has turned out to be fairly quiet. Weasel populations are very responsive to prey availability and go up and down with variations in vole numbers. I haven't had a camera on the weasel wall this year but the weasel box has been monitored continuously. The camera records mostly common shrews and bank voles but there have been a few weasel visits in the last three months.
Last week this one turned up for a good look around. I think it is new to the box.
And in June a high-speed weasel that was so fast I can't tell which it is. There are no cuts in this edit.
I also saw a male weasel in the walled garden at the weekend so they are around. I'll keep the camera going and report back if there is more activity.
Thursday, 10 July 2025
Lunar Hornet Moth
The Lunar Hornet Moth looks, sounds and flies like a hornet or giant wasp. It is one of a group of clearwing moths that use Batesian mimicry to deter predators, that is they disguise themselves as something more dangerous and unpalatable to a potential predator.
Since 2020 a synthetic pheromone has been commercially available and reports of adult moths have increased dramatically. This is the third year in a row I have had a go with a lure and all these photos are of males attracted to a pheromone lure in the past week. (The female moth looks very similar but is larger.) Once the moths have been in the trap for a few minutes they calm down and are happy to sit on a willow trunk for a few minutes while they gather their thoughts before flying off.
The photos on or in the trap aren't much good so I had a go at flight shots which are tricky but a few came out OK. This one was taken in natural light and the shutter speed wasn't fast enough to freeze the wing movement.
These were taken with flash.