It’s been another busy week of footage at Yew View. As we get into February, my mind moves towards the breeding season and checking all my nest boxes and cameras are working. We have a number of nest boxes at Yew View, some of which have cameras. Last year we set up one in the courtyard, which the blue tits looked in, but they did not nest. I plugged the camera back in this week and was delighted to see a blue tit already in there! A pair were in and out all day and then one is using the box for a night time roost. It looks promising for the season ahead! This box has small daylight LED inside that are attached to a sensor. They come on in the day and go off at night. My experience has shown that the birds are not disturbed by such lights and most of my boxes now have internal lighting of some kind as it greatly enhances the footage. #gallery-17448-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-17448-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-17448-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-17448-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
I am also trialling a new nest box from HandyKam. This box uses an IP camera, rather than the standard nest box type camera in most other boxes. I have played around with it a bit and changed the way the camera is mounted in the box, as I wanted a slightly different view-point. I am going to be experimenting with this box both at home and at YewView to see what kind of footage we can capture. I am also going to be customising it with some lights as well. In the meantime, I have mounted it on a tree in the woodland area and we had a great tit look in on the very next day! #gallery-17448-2 { margin: auto; } #gallery-17448-2 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-17448-2 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-17448-2 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
The camera badger sett has also had a lot of action this week. I think there are two youngsters… they are very playful and have spent most of every night in the chambers, leaving in the morning before it gets light.
This sequence of videos had me chuckling…. one of the badgers was really tired… in fact, felt out on his back. The other one is wide awake and the footage is lovely … so wonderful to be able to watch them in this week and it never ceases to enthral me!
It wasn’t only badgers in the sett…. we also had a newt this week!
Last week, I uploaded a clip of a mysterious black cat that has been regularly visiting our badger feeding station. Last week, it scared off the local fox! This week it encountered one of the badgers….. what do you think was the outcome? Who would be scared by whom?
All is looking promising for the tawnies! Over one 3 night period, both male and female visited and were both int eh box at one point. There was aalso some ‘paddling’, where the owl leans onto her chest and kicks with her legs, testing out the substrate of the box. This is lined with a deep lining of rough wood and bark chippings and it was what they seemed to like last year. It is fantastic having the camera on the outside now too! #gallery-17448-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-17448-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-17448-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-17448-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
To give you an idea of the outside camera location, here is a clip of a squirrel using the platform as a look out!
I also noticed this clip with a tree creeper doing what tree creepers do best…..
Finally, we have not yet seen the barn owl visit our posh new Barn Owl Mansion, but a tawny paid a visit…. and so did a squirrel. We are keeping everything crossed for this one!