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.