It's a smelly old world

We humans have a poorly developed sense of smell so it is difficult for us to appreciate how important it is for most other mammals.  Mustelids, in particular, use scent to communicate with others of their kind, marking their territories and advertising their presence and breeding condition.  With the exception of badgers, female and male mustelids lead separate lives, usually meeting only for courtship and mating.  As they have large territories, are thinly spread across the landscape and are mainly active at night, scent-marking is a vital way for them to tell who is about and who is available.

Otter cubs are already leaving their own scent marks and sniffing others by the time they first appear on the cameras at three or four months of age.  The first video, from late 2024, shows two young otter cubs exploring their world, much more interested in the scents than the sights or sounds.

Otters use spraint (otter poo), urine or anal jelly to leave scent marks, choosing prominent features such as rocks and grass tussocks.  This is a new spot I have only just discovered.  The very first night after I set up a camera an otter turned up.

The next video shows a popular sprainting spot which is very regularly visited by the dog otter and (separately) by the mother and cubs - there is fresh spraint almost every time I look.  It was interesting to see it marked by a badger as well on this occasion - a behaviour known as "musking".

Badgers' family dynamics are rather different from otters' but they use latrines to mark their territories and they scent-mark each other to reinforce the clan smell and maintain family bonds. Here's an example with a mother repeatedly making sure her cub smells like the rest of the family, using sub caudal glands under her tail - a process called "allomarking".

Polecats are notoriously smelly to our sensibilities (another name is foulmart) but it obviously works for them.  The next video shows a polecat using urine, scat and body rubbing to advertise its presence and sniffing to see who else has been around.

The smaller mustelids are the more elusive they become.  Tracking weasels and stoats is very difficult so less is known about their territorial behaviour.  Field signs are usually very few but this weasel left a message inside my camera box.  It was also scent marking by rubbing its body along the entrance pipe as it went in and out, something that happens nearly every time.

SardineCam

A couple of my trail cameras have been on tour - to my friends Gill and Martyn in deepest darkest Hexhamshire.  I took a new camera box for one camera and set up the second with a sardine lure as a new experiment.  Sardines are used by researchers to increase detection of carnivores so I wondered if it would work here.  Hexhamshire is home to polecats (Mustela putorius), one if the UK's most elusive mammals, so one aim was to see if we could catch one on camera.  The more realistic aim was to see what we would find.

The cameras were set for three weeks and at the end of that time both SD cards were full.  The sardine camera had 398 videos and the box camera 498 so I had plenty to look through.  The sardine camera was set up at the edge of woodland with the camera and the sardine can fixed to opposite ends of a piece of wood.  The can was secured with a cable tie.

SardineCam recorded 11 species but only four of those were interested in the sardine lure - the others were just passing by.  The four were badger, wood mouse, magpie and domestic cat.  The badger visited only once but tried hard to get into the can.  The camera gave a great close up of its teeth and claws (with a spider in the top left of the lens).

The magpie visited twice and the first time it managed to peck a few fragments of fish, even though the can was only slightly open (the can is now very visible after badger removed all my camouflage).

The wood mouse visited many times, obviously attracted by the smell but not trying to get at the can.  The cat just sniffed a few times and walked on.

Most of the 398 videos were of American grey squirrels.  Other passers by were blackbird, robin, wood pigeon, pheasant, roe deer, and red fox.

My new camera box was set up at the base of a stone wall.

It had large entrance pipes hoping to entice in slightly larger animals but in the end the only visitors were wood mice, bank voles, common shrews and pygmy shrews.  Here is a brief summary of 498 videos (most of which featured a wood mouse!).

It was very interesting to try out the cameras in a new environment.  The card in the  camera box was full in only nine days so another time I would need a bigger card.  I was hoping we might see a stoat or a weasel and I still have polecat on my wish list.

My mammal year

2023 has been mostly about mustelids, from weasels and stoats in my garden, to otters nearby, to pine martens in Ardnamurchan, with badgers here and there.  Other mammals have been foxes, mice, shrews, voles and even a roebuck in the garden, not to mention rabbits and squirrels.  Oh, and a bat I rescued from a pond.  Here are some highlights.

BadgerCam in Ardnamurchan

This is probably the last set of images from my trip to Ardnamurchan a few weeks ago.  The trail cameras and food put out for the pine martens mostly attracted badgers.  The white flash Wingscapes camera did better with the badgers than it had with pine martens, probably mainly because the badgers didn't move around as much.

Each night the badgers stayed until all the peanuts and raisins had gone so I ended up with dozens of videos of badgers eating, all pretty much the same.  They don't have great table manners and are very noisy eaters as you can hear on this video.  The occasional flickering is caused by a second camera to the right switching off and back on.

The badgers also took a liking to the peanut butter and strawberry jam I put on a stick to encourage the pine martens to climb.  The badgers are less agile but taller and can reach without climbing.

Badger portraits

My main aim on my trip to Ardnamurchan last month was to see pine martens but their fellow mustelids, badgers, also omnivores and attracted to free food, put in an appearance most evenings.  Although it was wonderful to see them, badgers aren't very exciting to watch as they are nose down in the food most of the time.  Fortunately they did occasionally look up to give me a chance of a photo.

Badgerwatch

I have been lucky enough to see badgers before and from time to time I have targeted them with trail cameras but I don't think I have ever been able to take a photo.  This was a real treat.

Out with the old and in with the new

Mrs Badger is a very tidy animal and has been busy spring cleaning.  I think this is the mother of two cubs I videoed coming out of the sett for the first time two years ago.  I set up the camera again in the hope of a repeat but all I have seen so far is housework.  On this evening she spent six minutes making six trips clearing out the old bedding and another 22 minutes and seven trips replacing it with fresh stuff.  So we don't have to watch it all in real time I have speeded up the action.

I'll keep the camera in place for a while in case new cubs make an appearance.

Guest appearances on OtterCam

The otters are very used to my cameras and mostly ignore them or give them a sniff as they pass.  Badgers are less keen, both on the red light and the human scent.  They often don't seem to notice if they just walk past but soon beat a retreat if they spot a camera.  Here is one investigating the otter run.  It is in complete darkness of course and sniffs its way around.

On another evening twice a badger went down the gully and retreated when it saw the bottom camera.  The second time it returned to check out the top camera.

Roe deer largely ignore the camera but sometimes take an interest, probably in the hope that it is something to eat.

Other recent non-target species have been wood mouse, brown rat, moorhen, robin, blackbird, teal and mute swan but they don't make for an interesting video.

The latest from BadgerCam

Life is hard for badgers in this dry weather as earthworms are hard to come by, so they are pleased to have a few peanuts even if it means having their photos taken.  I set up the old Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0 for the first time for a year and a couple of photos on the first night made it worthwhile.

One the second night the badgers were out earlier, when the sky was too bright.  I expect they had remembered where the peanuts were and were hoping for more.

On the third night I moved the camera to a different position, on a well-worn trail.

A badger can always find time for a scratch.

There were many more photos than this but the badgers aren't good at standing in the right place or looking in the right direction.

I think they benefit from having a photogenic background so I have been experimenting each night with different positions under the lime trees.

On the last night the first badger turned up in daylight.

Later there were two and at first they seemed to get on.

Moments later there was a bit of a scrap.  It looks fierce on this one shot and one badger might have got a bloodied nose.  They are usually just snapping at each other, although you can see how they get their scars.  Badgers are mostly solitary feeders but I expect they were both keen to get the peanuts.

Badgers are an easier subject for the trail camera than foxes or otters but it is still satisfying to be able to share their photos because they are so hard to see in real life.