Although the morning started cold and misty, when the sun burnt through, it definitely began to feel like Spring at Yew View this week. With the passing of the snowdrops, the daffodils have taken over, with swathes of sunny heads blanketing some of the sunniest banks. The cowslips have appeared as well and the ground is starting to burst with life.
It is the nest boxes and other wildlife cams that we are really interested in this Spring! As you can imagine this is a bit of a dream scenario for me… setting up lots of new and exciting wildlife cameras; many of which just would not be possible back home in my little patch! We have installed lots of nest box cams and we have had interest of some sort in just about all of them! We have 4 camera tit boxes out and one of them is leading the way as the blue tits start bringing in nesting materials!
Sadly, we have not had any more visits from the Tawny, but I have not given up hope yet and I have been thrilled with the footage we have recorded so far.
One of my favourite new cameras is the HD Vivotek that I set up at the artificial badger sett entrance. It is giving us some great footage and the images are really clear, so I am hoping to be able to identify individuals. We had some super clips this week, including one brief appearance in daylight, that was very unexpected! There is certainly one individual with a pale patch on her black stripe. It was fantastic to capture 3 badgers in one clip as we are unsure how many we have.
This clip did not include the very large female! She does not look like she has had her cubs yet, although most badgers will have had them by now, some are born in March. We can’t wait for when the youngsters start to come out in this area and we are able to watch them!
The daylight clip was a bonus… I zoomed in on the second part of the clip…
I have also been out and about with the Bushnell Natureviews. My set up at the otter platform did not prove successful this week, but my attempts to capture the buzzard on the ground finally paid off with a couple of clips. I want to capture it catching worms, but really difficult to predict where it is going to land in such a huge space… perseverance…..
With Spring well on the way, we were thinking ahead to April. One thing I don;t get here at home , are swallows nesting. Yew View has a large barn-type garage and they nest up inside there. It used to be the old stable and the beams offer good places to nest. Several years ago, some artificial swallow nests were put in and they have been well used. Apparently, they usually come back around the 24th April, so I was keen to get the cams up, ready for their arrival so we do not disturb them.
I set 2 700TVL nest box cameras up near the 2 most commonly used nests, wired them all into the icatcher system and was pleased with the image I was getting. If they choose to nest here again this year, we should be treated to some great views! I am very excited about these as I have never followed the story of swallows nesting before.
The swallows enter through the old stable window and apparently, when the youngsters fledge, they sit here and get fed by the adults! I just can;t wait to be sitting in our little pop-up hide photographing that later in the summer!
Seeing the changes occur at this first Spring for me at Yew View is very exciting… I am hoping to capture some really special wildlife moments in the coming year!