Last night in the garden

We had a little bit of snow this week, the first of the winter.  I glanced out of the back door window last night just as this fox was approaching so I was able to take a few photos.  I am not completely sure which fox this is - probably one of last year's cubs.  The dog with his torn ear, the vixen with her pale mask and her stocky body shape, and the other cub with half a tail are all very distinctive whereas this fox just looks unremarkable.  I have seen it a few times in the last week or so and it is very wary but hungry enough to approach the house.  Fortunately it can't see me or hear the camera through the door.

RoeDeerCam in the woods

Most times when you see a roe deer in the woods it is watching you intently, having seen/heard/smelt you before you spotted it, or it is running away.  This time I did something different with the trail cameras and it allowed me to get a few videos of the deer when they were completely relaxed.  I set up two cameras on a tree beside a trail that looked as though it was in use and left them there for five days and nights.  There was less traffic than I had hoped but I did get a few clips of the deer, even if they mostly didn't stick to the trail and so weren't walking or looking in the right direction. Deer are the most unpredictable of the animals in the woods as they wander all over and won't take any bait, preferring to find their own food.

Here are three deer, walking across the trail and not along it (!) - a doe, a buck and a young doe, dawdling.

Some of them are looking a bit scruffy as they start to moult their dark winter coats.

The resolution of the cameras is less good at night when they use their own infrared light source.

This buck has uneven antlers so he should be easy to identify if I see him again.

On the last morning there was a brief fall of snow.  Here are images from both cameras.

This was my set-up.  I had two cameras at about (my) knee height which was perfect for the roe deer which are small, roughly the size of a sheep.

When I am targeting smaller animals such as foxes and badgers I put the cameras on the ground.  There were several clips with a fox or a badger but the videos weren't great because of the camera height.

On several clips there was no animal to be seen but the audio revealed heavy breathing, snuffling or footsteps as something, probably a badger, investigated the camera out of view.  One of the cameras has a low-glow infrared source meaning there is a faint visible light.  This fox turned round and saw it, took fright, and ran off.

Other sightings (not shown) were pheasant and American grey squirrel.  Most exciting of all was a tawny owl which pounced on something immediately below the camera.  It must have been so quick that it didn't trigger the camera until it had already landed.  It had a quick look around and flew off but was too close and so out of focus.  If only it had landed a metre or two farther back it might have been a good picture.

Maybe next time.

Foxes in the snow

We had a bit of snow on Friday night but this is the first opportunity I have had to post a few photos.  I had already put out the peanuts before the snow fell but the foxes had no trouble finding them.  The first one turned up on his own.

Here is a short video.

About an hour later a pair turned up.  It was fascinating to watch them sniffing out peanuts one at a time from under the snow.

Another short video.

A new experience

Yesterday brought the first snow of the winter.  As the sparrowhawk is only a few months old it was the first time he had seen it.  He had already had his breakfast (a blue tit).

and was wondering about a second helping when it started to snow.

After a few minutes he moved up to the perch, unusual for him as he spends a lot of time on the ground, but it made the photos a bit more interesting.  Autofocus doesn't work in the snow (the camera keeps trying to focus on snowflakes) so I have to focus manually and the snow was wetting the window so the photos are less clear.

I wondered if the snow would make his prey easier for him to see but they were all keeping a low profile and I didn't see him make a strike while it was falling.  Once it stopped he was back on high alert.

My lunchtime visitor

Another big surprise.  I was just getting lunch today when I glanced out of the kitchen window to see a fox strolling around the garden.  Most of the cameras were set up for the sparrowhawk but I managed to grab one and fire off a few photos.  The lens was 300mm and the fox was a bit too close at times.  It had quick sniff around under the bird feeders and then trotted off.  You can see it has a nasty facial wound, very probably inflicted during a fight with a rival.  I hope it heals OK and it may enable me to identify this one again if it comes to the back door at night.  It certainly seemed to know its way around.