My cameras have taken somewhat second place over those at Yew View recently, but I have been capturing some lovely clips at home as well and wanted to share a few of these.
As my Prickly Diner with the HD cam had not attracted too many hedgehogs this year, I converted it to more of a Mammal box, adding some internal decoration… still space for a hedgehog if it so wished, but thinking I might be able to get some good small mammal footage. The larger box has given me a bit more scope with my props and I have been delighted with the feel of the set. I wanted to create something that the mammals would pop out of… different places for them to access the space in a realistic type setting. The wood mice and bank voles are feeding in there regularly now and the common and pygmy shrews also make an appearance, albeit rather fleeting!
I uploaded a couple of clips, showing some of the scenes I see on a daily basis…. To see them in their full glory click on the COG icon and SELECT HD!!
The squirrels, although highly annoying on my feeders, despite having their ‘own’ feeders, are pretty endearing to watch as they play and sleep in one of my tawny boxes! There is a female and her 3 young from this year and they move between this box and my barn owl box. Very playful and highly acrobatic, these youngster race around the garden chasing each other, leaping fearlessly from branch to branch and the clips below were taken on a particularly horrible wet and windy day this week. This box has internal lighting inside during the day, hence the colour images and these lively youngsters spent a lot of time leaping in and out of the box and playing….
Finally, they all fell asleep… with fluffy duvet tails over them…. rather addictive to watch!!
My foxes are still visiting and , if they are about, I put this camera live on my website. There are often two who visit…. possibly this year’s cubs. They are looking very healthy and their winter coats are thick and plush. There are plenty of rats and rabbits a round and these foxes are thriving on them! …
There are lots of bird visitors too and I am planning a big new feeding station for this winter with a new HD cam on it… so watch this space! I am hoping to get my first PTZ camera (pan tilt zoom) so I can control the camera from my office and move it between feeders to get the best footage I can. All very exciting… feeding the birds has to be my most favourite of hobbies and is how I first got interested in wildlife as a child. I still get a tremendous amount of pleasure from watching the many avian visitors I get here and I love sharing my feeders with others via my live cameras. With the weather getting colder, numbers will start increasing and we should see a good variety of species…. I am hoping for some siskins and redpolls…. keep watching and let me know if you see anything interesting!