Pine marten portraits

More holiday snaps from Ardnamurchan.  I think these are my favourites, partly because of the planning and imagining that went into them.  I drove up to Scotland with the car loaded with cameras, trail cameras, tripods, lights, chargers, pine marten food, and props for the photos. Two things I included were a hollow tree trunk and a piece of old terracotta drain pipe that I saved from a skip.  After a bit of trial and error over the first two or three nights I managed to tempt a marten in at the far end and through to this end of the tree trunk, using strawberry jam.

Two nights later the trick worked with the pipe.

Pine martens are quick learners and by the last night it had worked out that it didn't need to crawl through the pipe but could come round to this end instead, but at least I already had what I wanted.  Very satisfying.

Pine martens

Until two weeks ago I had never seen a pine marten so to see one in real life was the main aim of a trip to Ardamurchan in western Highland, Scotland.  In the end I spent every evening of the week watching them through the window from a distance of about 3m.  Pine martens are mid-sized mustelids, with weasels, stoats, polecats and American mink being smaller, and otters and badgers being larger.  They look to me to be a bit smaller than a domestic cat, with something rather cat-like about their movement and agility.  I suspect all those I saw were female or this year's kits.

Pine-martens, like badgers, are omnivores, meaning it is possible to attract them by putting out food, something that doesn't really work for the other carnivorous members of the family.  In my so far very limited experience they are especially fond of strawberry jam, peanut butter, sultanas and eggs.  Emma, the owner of the chalet where I stayed, puts out a veritable smorgasbord for the martens and badgers every evening and they were indifferent to my lights or to me sitting just a few feet away.  I ended up taking rather a lot of photos and trail camera videos which will take some time to process but here are a few of the early results.

Sometimes there were two, although they weren't very cooperative and never got into a position for a good view of both at the same time.  On one occasion I saw three together but the third was very elusive.

Pine martens are very curious by nature and they often came to have a close look at my lights.

I have more pine marten photos so I'll put them on the blog soon.

The Famous Five

I have been up to Scotland for a few days (more on that soon) and on the way I stopped to look for a rare ladybird - the 5-spot Ladybird (Coccinella quinquepunctata).  It is found only on unstable river shingle in North-East Scotland and a few places in Wales.  According to the book the 5-spot can be found in the shingle or within a few metres in nearby nettles, thistles, docks etc.  I travelled up at the end of Storm Babet when the rivers were in spate, so the edge of the water wasn't where it had been a few days before.  I had also heard that nearby pine trees were worth a look.  Most records on iRecord seemed to be a fair distance from the nearest road and I didn't have much time to spare so I searched on the map and on Google Streetview for somewhere there would be riverside Scots pines near where I could park the car.  I settled on Blair Atholl, downstream from the Bridge of Tilt at the back of the museum car park. And would you believe it?  Within 15 minutes I had found a 5-spot ladybird in a pine tree.

After a few photos I put it back in the tree and went on my way.  The 5-spot Ladybird's very restricted distribution in the UK is odd because it is apparently fairly common and widespread on the Continent where it can be seen in car parks and on brownfield sites.  I also am intrigued by how it copes with floods.  I checked a couple of weeks before and the River Spey (the 5-spot Ladybird hotspot) rose over 3m (10') in a few hours.  I suppose ladybirds can fly to escape the rising water, but what about their larvae?  They must also be able to cope somehow, otherwise they would be wiped out by floods every summer.

Autumn butterflies

The storm over the the past couple of days probably means this is nearly the end of the season for most of our insects.  Earlier in the week the butterflies were making the most of some October sunshine, fuelling up on rotten apples before going into winter hibernation.  I saw up to 20 red admirals and just a few commas.

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It hasn't been a great year for apples, with quite a lot of fallers but at least the butterflies and wasps have benefitted.

Ivy flowers

Ivy is one of the last plants to flower and provides a welcome resource for late season insects. The ivy in my garden is now providing nectar and pollen to a wide variety of insects.  I first noticed a lot of pollen being brought into the hives and when I went into the copse I found honey bees,

wasps,

hoverflies,

flies,

crane flies,

and ladybirds, mostly harlequins,

and one cream-spot ladybird.  Until now I didn't know that ladybirds would eat pollen.

Ivy nectar is rich in sugar, 49% w/w, and the pollen has a high level of amino acids.  The ivy will probably provide nectar and pollen until at least the end of this month.  Later the berries will be eaten by thrushes, blackcaps, wood pigeons and other birds.

News from OtterCam

 

The wide-angle lenses on the otter cameras continue to prove their worth and I now have three deployed.  The camera by the water's edge sees the otters as they visit their sprainting spot but also records lots and lots(!) of pictures of baby rats.  The video shows a couple of visits from otters.  The first one appears to have a small injury on its back so these are probably two different animals.

Those two never quite got into the same position in the frame so it isn't easy to compare their size, although from the head shapes I think the first was a male and the second a female.  I did look back at the same camera in one of the videos in my previous post and it is easy to see the larger dog otter (on the right) compared with the female.

I check for footprints on the sluice gate every time I pass.  One set puzzled me recently.  On the left were standard otter prints

but on the right was a very smudged trail.

The camera provided the answer.  The first otter had tobogganed across using only its front feet while the second walked normally.  They were three hours apart and both were very quick so the video is slowed down to 25%.  The second otter looks larger and it is probably the dog again.