Wildplaces Tees Valley
Monday 13 December 2010
Winter's back!
When getting to the cameras has been possible, I've been rewarded with some very good videos including otters rolling around in the snow and entering and leaving a Holt (can be seen on our youtube channel).
The cold weather doesn't bother Otters at all, as they're perfectly adapted to a life of cold and wet, as long as they can find somewhere dry and sheltered to rest through the daylight hours. Our Bird life on the other hand, doesn't always fare so well, and a prolonged cold spell can have a devastating effect on population numbers. Bird feeders are a vital source of nourishment at this time of year, but birds also need to find somewhere warm and dry to shelter through the long cold nights.
The thermometer read -11.5 c as I set off to check the bird boxes that are fitted with cameras, to see if I could film any birds that may be occupying them, and below is a clip of a Great Tit which fluffs it's feathers out to trap air as it roosts.
Thursday 16 September 2010
Update
I've not managed as much night time filming as I'd planned, but I did make some progress with my experiments at adding extra infra red light so I could film in darkness with a camcorder. I've used the set up to film an Otter travelling beneath a bridge then swimming off downstream (the video can be seen on our youtube channel).
On the subject of Otters, we're coming to the time of year when more get killed crossing roads. The darker mornings and evenings coincide with the heaviest volume of traffic, so more animals fall victim as they cross busy roads. Just this morning as I was travelling to work I saw an Otter lying at the roadside and on pulling over I thought by the size of it that it was probably a Dog Otter, but when I got closer I saw that it was actually a large Bitch, and worse still it was obviously suckling Cubs which unfortunately will have very little chance of surviving. The picture isn't pretty but sadly this thing happens so often...
Thursday 5 August 2010
I've also been experimenting (not yet as successfully as I'd hoped!) with different methods of filming some of the wildlife that's difficult to capture on our static camera systems, for example Daubentons Bats skimming along a beck. Watching them through a night vision device gives some fantastic views of the way they snatch insects from the surface of the water. But when I tried to record what I was seeing onto the recording device, the slow frame rate coupled with the fact that the night vision throws a relatively narrow beam of infra red light, the footage was not that good, though on the clip below, a Bat can be clearly seen plucking an insect from the water.
Another method I tried was using one of the variable focus cameras set to wide angle, overlooking a pool, to see if this would give any better results. The footage from this was very poor, as when the Bats were close enough to see clearly, they were only in frame for a split second, the rest of the time they appeared as small dots floating around the screen, so I'm now trying to come up with a suitable method of giving plenty of infra red light which will allow me to film with a better quality camera. On the plus side, just as I was starting to set up the camera, an Otter appeared just a few feet away, and I quickly managed to point the camera at it and get the few seconds of footage below.
Friday 2 July 2010
Swallows nest
As well as continuing to collect lots of footage of urban mammals we've had a camera on the Swallows that have nested at our office for the past few years. Here's a video of their progress from just after hatching through to fledging.
Thursday 3 June 2010
Sleeping Badger
At first I thought it was another dead Badger (I've found several lately, most of them have had nasty, festering wounds as a result of being attacked by other Badgers, which can be common), but as I watched, it became clear that it was asleep beneath a tree. I watched it for about ten minutes before it stirred and had a good scratch.
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Badger watching
After getting comfortable, I sat and waited, and after seeing several Rabbits emerge from the Sett, a larger, stripey head appeared in the mouth of one of the holes. I readied the camera, and when the badger (a Sow) eventually emerged, she ambled steadily up the bank and away, meaning I managed only about 15 seconds of video.
It's been obvious from many of the trail camera videos I've got from near this Sett, that the Sow is suckling a litter of Cubs (her teats are clearly visible), and didn't want to hang around for long, prefering to get out and forage to replace some of the many calories she'll be using up feeding them.
I hung around for a while, in the hope that another Badger would emerge, and as it got too dark to use the camcorder, I switched to the night vision. About 10 minutes after it got totally dark, the Boar appeared, and I managed to get a few minutes footage. As you can see, it came very close to me, without detecting that I was there, and after it wandered off, I headed home content with what I'd seen.
Thursday 22 April 2010
First Fox Cubs
It's obvious from the clip, that these Cubs are being well fed, and several of the videos have shown them playing with dead Ducklings-no coinicidence that a Mallard on a nearby pond hatched 16 Eggs on Sunday, and by Monday all of the Ducklings had dissappeared, very easy pickings for the Vixen!
More of the videos can be seen on the wildplaces youtube page.