2022 - A patch review

 So 2022 draws to a close marking the 19th year that I have collected weekly data on my patch. One more year and I can do a deep dive analysis on the data and develop a 20-year report. Even with 20 years of data some of the patterns that are beginning to emerge are so scant that maybe another 20 years of data will be needed!

I can sum up the year thus:

44 - the number of recording visits

42.7 - the total number of recording observation hours

57 - bird species

13 - butterfly species

11 - dragonfly species

4 - mammal species

1 - reptile species

August -  the hottest month

December - the coldest month

February - the windiest month

Winners and Losers

This year populations of Chiffchaff, Jay, Skylark, and Nuthatch all increased. The Marsh Tits returned this year after last being seen in 2012. Sedge Warblers bred once again this year for the second year in a row and winter flocks of teal have increased. 

The following graphs show abundance over the past 19 years indexed to 2004 at 100.

Those species declining are notably the three common tit species and the Little Grebe has not been recorded since 2020.

Of the 61 species recorded this year and last 5 were not recorded this year with only 4 new species recorded. 

Between 2021 and 2022 40% of species increased by more than 10%, 42% declined by more than 10% and 18% remained stable.

This is a very brief and cursory examination of the data, more is sure to follow although that may take some time. Tomorrow I will collect the memory cards from my trail cams and complete another year of that data collection, an annual update will follow once they have been analsyed.

Roe deer encounter

 British mammals are notoriously hard to see. British fauna is a mere shadow of that which it once was or that which exists in the rest of Europe. For the most part, gone are the wolves, bears, aurochs, lynx, and the like although there are returning species such as the beaver and the boar, and others are shrouded in the debate over other reintroductions. British mammals have learned to be elusive and are almost exclusively nocturnal. The most seen mammals are Grey Squirrels which as an invasive species have taken over our towns and cities. Mice and rats are often seen but perhaps the rabbit and fox can be counted as the most obvious of our wilder nature.

My trail camera work has shown me the wealth of mammal life all around us, but rarely have I seen these mammals in person. I can count the number of badgers, otters, weasels, stoats, and mink that I have seen each on a single hand. In recent years however the mill has allowed me to get to know a different species, the Roe Deer.

Many of my blog posts have explored these deer and their antics. There are several females and a couple of bucks. Over the last few years, they have successfully bred and this year one of the does gave birth to two fawns. I never saw these fawns in person their mother kept them too closely protected although I did watch them grow on the various video clips and photos from the trail cams. Over the past few months, I have seen the mother and the two fawns, now nearly the same size as her almost every time I have gone down.

The three deer browse in the thick reedy vegetation and they blend in perfectly. Normally I spook them, I never see them before they see me. Every time they bolt and bound off into thicker undergrowth and disappear. My stalking skills have never been very good, and I must confess my patience is too short to stakeout the meadow, there are too many exciting birds and sights to distract me.

This week however what I assumed was amazing fieldcraft was actually something quite different. On Christmas Eve I visited the mill to collect my cameras and I wanted to check on the whips I had planted. As I crossed the meadow area which is covered in brambles, long grasses, and the dried stems of nettles and loosestrife the doe jumped out in front of me. It bounded away from me flashing its white rump at me, holding my gaze, and then it stopped. Normally it would be off and keep going but this time it paused and looked back at me.

Animals and birds tend to be disturbed by eye contact. It triggers in them the flight condition and so whilst I paused stock still I avoided the does gaze. Carefully with my head down, I was able to remove my camera from its case, turn it on and bring it to my face. The doe stuttered a little and took a few steps further before stopping once more and fixing me with a steely glare. Perhaps she had decided to turn the predator-prey tables and was trying to make me flee?

I managed to get a couple of shots off, trying to focus between the vegetation before in what looked like exasperation she bounded off and with a final check to see if I was following bounded behind a bramble patch out of site. The meadow is riddled with animal tracks and the way was quite clear along the backwater where she had bounded but rather than follow her directly, I decided that if I cut round to the right side of the bramble bush and see if I could catch sight of her the other side.

Taking but a step or two to the right I was startled as a second and then a third leaped out of the undergrowth in front of me. The first was so close that I could nearly have reached out and stroked its back. In silence, they bounded after the doe and disappeared. Pulling myself together I moved around the brambles and in the distance saw the three of them running hell for leather into the distance.

Excited by my encounter it took a moment for the event to sink in and for the truth to reveal itself to me. My field craft had not calmed the doe and allowed her to stand patiently as I got my camera and took some shots, far from it she was playing me. What I had experienced is something many species do to distract predators. Although the two fawns were now nearly fully grown, she was still protecting them. Whilst they hunkered down stock still in the undergrowth practically invisible, she tried to distract me and lead me away from them. Her pausing and watching me was her checking to see if I was following, she was taunting me, begging me to follow, awkward me however hadn’t followed her path exactly, instead, I had deviated to the right and come too close to the hidden fawns. The minute I crossed that hidden boundary of comfort the fawns bolted and took themselves to safety.

This fact changes the context of the encounter to one of amazement of a wild animal becoming comfortable with my presence a moment of two souls meeting between a gaze to one tinged with fear and panic. The concern of a mother trying to lead a potential threat away from her young. Young that although nearly fully grown were still dear to her, forgive the pun. In nature, it is hard to equate maternal feelings and at what point that ends. We see it in wildlife documentaries when a cheetah cub is chased off to find a new territory or a bear cub is abandoned to find its own life whilst the mother mates again but, in this case, the doe is still intent on protecting her young.

Roe deer are the only deer to exhibit delayed implantation. The doe will have mated with one of the two local bucks back in July/August but the fertilised egg will not actually implant in the uterine wall until January, this is when I suspect this maternal instinct will fade although the three of them will stick together for a while until the new fawns are born in mid-May.

 

Mixed Species Tit Flocks

 It is at this time of year when the leaves are falling from the trees and the birds start to flock together that mobile tit flocks are more evident.

Back in university, my dissertation looked at optimal foraging theory in woodland birds and it was at this time that I first noticed the phenomena known as mixed species flocking. I made my study in Penglais Wood, just over the road from the main campus of Aberystwyth University. I walked this woodland several times a week counting the birds and trying to time foraging events. 

The busiest spot was always in a clearing of beech trees. Beech trees are amazing organisms, their thick foliage means that very little ground cover grows beneath them and in winter their golden leaves drop to form a thick carpet that becomes full of small insects and beech masts. This feast attracted the likes of Blackbirds, Thrushes, and Redwings but also flocks of smaller birds. Chaffinches were predominant alongside Great Tits, with Blue Tits, Wrens, and Treecreepers flitting in the branches. Watching these flocks led me into reading up on Hurlbert's work on Niche Overlap theory, a post for another time perhaps.

Today I see these flocks regularly on my patch. The core of these flocks tends to be the ever-gregarious Long-tailed Tit family groups. They assemble post-breeding in extended families and can number into the mid-teens. With them, travel Blue Tits and Great Tits with very occasionally a Coal Tit or Marsh Tit. What makes these little flocks more interesting are the added extras who come along for the ride. Mixed in amongst the flurry of little bodies is often a Treecreeper or two or Goldcrest, rarer still are Nuthatch or overwintering Blackcap.

Mixed species Tit flocks are not hard to miss. They are noisy and fill the air with a cacophony of cherubic tweets and frantic dashes between trees. The woodland or hedgerow suddenly comes alive with little bodies flitting hither and thither. It can be somewhat overwhelming having so many birds whizzing about, flocks can sometimes reach upward of twenty individuals or more. Counting such events can be difficult but I find the easiest way is to position oneself in a gap between two trees and then try and count them as they fly between them.

Small passerines find such flocks very advantageous. In the autumn and winter without the leaf cover, such small birds are terribly exposed to predators such as the Sparrowhawk, by traveling en masse they increase the number of eyes looking out for harm and can alert the whole group to danger with high-pitched frantic alarm calls. Large numbers also confuse the Sparrowhawk by providing too many targets for it to choose from. They are able to continue to forage in this way moving from tree to tree and exhibit great niche seperation. The long-tailed tits and goldcrests feed on the slender branch tips, Blue Tits and Great Tits on the larger branches, and the Treecreepers on the trunk.

In my experience, the bosses of this flock are the Long-tailed Tits. I have never seen a mixed species tit flock that did not include 'Longties', they take the lead and the others follow. Such flocks can turn a quiet still woodland walk into a bonanza of sound and movement, another one of natures little miracles.

Time is the fire in which we burn

 As Dr. Soran said in Star Trek: Generations quoting a Delmore Schwartz poem – “Time is the fire in which we burn”. It is this quote to which I have been drawn this week. With my master’s studies fully completed I now find myself with the time to return to processing the vast quantities, I have assembled regarding my patch.

Hazel Trees I planted 8 years ago as whips

I have visited my patch and recorded every bird and animal species nearly every week for twenty years. In 2014 I started a long-term camera trapping project that has now expanded to include two further cams – otter cam and badger cam. This produces sometimes up to 1000 images and video clips a week to process. Alongside this, I record some environmental data, this year including water quality information.

All this data is compiled first in rough on paper, it then has to be transferred to my database and then Excel spreadsheets for detailed analysis. I have cut some of the work down by only fully analysing the data on a five-year cycle but even then I rarely have time to go into the statistical analysis I would like to.

I have spent the past few weeks updating the spreadsheets and graphs for my trail cam information. It was while I was looking at the Wood Mouse data that I started to see the telltale sign of the standard population oscillation trend reminiscent of the work of Lotka-Volterra. I began to wonder if I could correlate the data against those of Tawny Owl and Fox and see if the patterns matched. I realised then that these cycles represented generations of mice. A Wood Mouse has a life span of perhaps 12-18 months in the wild and so the mouse I saw on the camera was certainly not the same individual I saw in my first video recording.

Life is fleeting, I recalled, VGY and ZTG the first pair of swans at the Mill who were so familiar to me that they would come to my whistle, the now long deceased and Half-Tail the resident old Dog Fox who vanished two years ago, and the fat badger that was blind in one eye. In 20 years, individuals had come and gone and recently I have struggled to identify individuals to the same level. Life is hard, little Huey the hedgehog who I wrote about in the last post died of parasite infestation during the week.

20 years may seem like a long time but looking at the data it’s still not enough yet to identify meaningful population trends, not with such a small sample size as just me recording. Even if I recorded for another 20 years which health providing is possible, I am still not certain I would have enough data. You see more data is never enough, you just need more. The more you get the better its quality. Of course, by sending in my records to the local Ecology Unit and Birdtrack means my effort is reserved for posterity but I won’t be around to see what comes next.

I look at the landscape of the mill and I can look at the trees I planted, like the cluster of Hazels that now actually look like trees but at a larger scale I contemplate the course of the river. It’s clear from the topography where the river used to run and where it runs now, but that was thousands of years of change and there is no chance that I will ever see any natural change in the course of the river. I sit beside huge plane trees at the pub recalling that they are evident in the pictures taken in the late 1800’s.

We species each have a life span, an allotment in time, and it’s up to us to make the most of it. If I were to be an oak tree and see 500 years, I still would want to know what happens next, that’s the curiosity of human nature and so I must content myself with my allotted span and make the most of it. I may never complete the data because it never will be completed but I can have fun watching the annual cycles and remember that the fragility of life is the very thing that gives life purpose.

 

Huey the Hedgehog- An essay on day time Hedgehogs and ethics.

 Following on from my last mammal post it is another popular mammal that has inspired this post.

The Hedgehog must be one of Britain's most beloved garden animals. They have such great character and have been exemplified by Beatrice Potter's Mrs. Tiggywinkle. The fact that they visit gardens means that they are readily observable to the layman. You do not need specialist equipment or years of tracking experience, camouflage, or hours in a hide to see them.

At this time of year and particularly during this warm spell they are busy putting on weight for their winter hibernation. A chance sighting in the garden earlier this month revealed that we had a hedgehog visiting. We have a little hog-i-tat at the bottom of the garden which they don't seem to use and built a little feeding station with bricks. We experimented with food, we started with dog food at first, which they seemed to like, then specific canned hedgehog food, which they didn't seem to like before settling for dried hedgehog food that they seem much more comfortable with. I must stress here that bread and milk, the kind of food we put out as a child should never be given. Hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and this can be very bad for them.

I put out one of my trail cameras and discovered that they visited several times during the night and that there were two individuals. One a large fat adult and a much small individual.

Last Tuesday just as I left for work at 8am the small hedgehog was noticeable out in the daylight. This is a bad sign. Any hog out in daylight is in trouble. It had only just gotten light so I thought he had just gotten caught out and he seemed quite mobile and alert and so I left him. Ironically that day my parents and my nieces went to a Hedgehog Day at Hill Close Gardens. There they met a lady from Warwickshire Hedgehog Rescue. They are an amazing team that looks after hedgehogs in the area. 

The key thing at this time of year for hedgehogs is putting on weight and so when we saw the hog that night I grabbed him and weighed him. The little fellow had a good roll response and despite being covered in fleas seemed in good health. He weighed just 325g just over half the weight he needed to be for hibernation. I was a little concerned, but we were feeding him and he seemed alert and well so I released him.

Yesterday, however, at midday I saw the little thing out down the pond, it was broad daylight and the alarm bells rang. He still seemed well, alert, and very mobile, he could certainly move when he wanted to. He was definitely hungry, he was moving methodically through the garden through the undergrowth and leaves snuffling and searching for food. Knowing he was underweight and out in the day, a risk to his survival. 

I gathered him up into a box. I lined it with old curtains and put in some of the dried food and water, and rang the Hedgehog Rescue lady. As she was fairly local she came and collected him, I m not sure he would have enjoyed my taking him by bike!

Huey, as my nieces insisted he be called was now in the best place. The carer would check him for parasites, something that they particularly suffer from when they turn towards eating slugs and snails. She would give him fluids and any medication needed, and if he survived would return him at a safe weight for release.

It is important to act quickly to a hedgehog out in the day. They are always in some kind of trouble and parasitic infections in the gut can turn nasty quickly. We had a hedgehog last year that we tended for a few hours before getting him to the Rescue Centre, but it was too late and he died. Hedgehogs often appear very perky and well before going drastically downhill.

So Huey is safe and warm. The carer will do all she can for him, but this incident reinforced something I have discussed on this channel before regarding ethics. When I saw Huey out in the daylight I was both concerned for him and delighted that I could get a good look at a wild hedgehog doing its thing. 

I watched him as he turned the leaves searching for beetles and worms and a took a quick snap with my phone to document his size. It was then a thought crossed my mind. Perhaps I should go and get my SLR, this would make for some excellent photographs, it's so hard to take them at night and here Huey was posing in the beautiful autumn sunlight. The thought faded as I remembered that the only reason he was out in the day was that he was either unwell or absolutely starving. Instead of reaching for my Camera, I dashed past for a box. This was undoubtedly the right thing to do. 

I have photos of animals in distress, a Fox and a Muntjac, both of these images taken before I realized their injuries. The photos took new meaning then, their beauty was tinged with sadness and darkness. I only ever use those images to illustrate the frailty of nature and never for profit or gain. It is our responsibility to protect our wildlife and treat them with respect. I could not help the Fox or Muntjac but I didn't want to denigrate their nature by capturing their likeness for a technically great shot.

I wonder now about all the photos I see of Hedgehogs beautifully framed in the leaves in full daylight. I hope they were all taken at rescue centres where the individual was cared for, but suspect that many were not. I understand that not everyone will know that a daytime Hedgehog is in trouble and just relish in this stroke of luck, but I hope everyone reading this will now understand that they need help, that they aren't well and they aren't posing for you.

A good general rule of thumb is that if you can approach an animal or bird then it is unwell and needs help. I have been called to help all sorts of birds and animals. Birds trapped in buildings, pigeons knocked out by a window collision, rabbits caught in cricket nets, and the like and in all cases the animals that allowed me close enough were in severe trouble. There is a balance between distressing the animal more and trying to help. Death is a natural part of nature and I personally find that unless you can safely, for you and them, catch them and get them to a vet who can do something it is best to let nature takes its course.

So, Huey is safe for now, he's not out of the woods, it all depends on the parasite load in his body, but he is in the best place.  I want everyone to be aware that a daytime hedgehog needs help and there are legions of volunteers across the country that care for hedgehogs, a now increasingly rare mammal. I want to say a huge thank you to these people who give up their time and money to protect this species. We can all do our bit and should - 

- feed our hedgehogs properly, not bread and milk

- Have dead wood in the garden to encourage beetles and grubs

- Leave leaves and compost bins for nesting

- check bonfires before lighting

- Take daytime hogs to a carer

- Cut hedgehog runs in our hedges and fences

Warwickshire Hedgehog Rescue - https://warwickshirehedgehogrescue.org/

Mammal Update

 A long time has passed since my last post. Life, as so often does, gets in the way. In the intervening 5 months, I have completed my MA in Military History and have been working hard at work to also pass some exams. This does not mean that I have neglected my patch. All through this time I have been visiting weekly and taking records. 

So here then is a little update of the mammals sighted on the site both in person and on camera:

Roe Deer 

The local herd consists of 2-3 does and two bucks. The dominant buck has impressive three-pronged horns whilst the other has simple two prongs. One of the does had two kids, both I believe to be female.

Muntjac

There is still an abundance of Muntjac on the site with several males and females. One female had a single fawn this year.

Badger

Badgers have been seen less often than they used to be and their sett seems less frequent than in the past. I think I single cub was born this year and over the last few weeks some very large individuals have been spotted.

Fox

There are no resident pairs on the site anymore. Several individuals have been seen, Thin tail, Thick brush, Speckles, and Black Tip. No cubs were seen this year.

Otter

Otter have been a highlight of the past 18 months but sadly since a female was seen courting a male they have not been seen since (6 months). It could be that they no longer pass otter cam, but all the frequent sprainting sites are not being used anymore either. 

Mink

A single Black Mink remains on site and is still seen intermittently.

Grey Squirrel

There has been no appreciable change in the number and behaviour of squirrels on site.

Wood Mice

Wood Mice are still abundant at all three camera sites.

Common Shrew

Picked up several times on Otter and Badger Cam

Field Vole

I had hoped my mostela would give more information on the resident field voles but once that was taken over by bees that idea was over. instead, I was lucky enough to spot two juveniles outside the badger sett.

Watching the Hunt

 The Kingfisher is acknowledged by its name alone as the King of Fishers however I feel that one other bird really deserves that title. Yes, the Kingfisher is gaudy and vibrant. Its dashing behavior and striking form show off its fantastic maneuverability and its dives are magnificent, but the true king is the Grey Heron.

There is something noble about these birds and they exude a cold calm deadliness. I have always felt Herons hold something of the prehistoric about them. Perhaps it is their piercing gaze or the scraggy look of their young but they certainly could have fitted into the ecosystem alongside those early birds of the Jurassic.

I was given cause to think about Herons today. They are not a rare sight in Warwick, in fact, the town boasts a substantial Heronry and they can be seen across the waterways from the Canal to the River, as well as taking easy meals from the fishponds of the Woodloes. This Heron was probably one I have photographed before. By the canal bridge on the Avon upstream of St Nicholas Park is a favourite haunt for this species and I often come across one fishing in the brook that enters the river here. Today I spotted him from the bridge above and so had a good view looking down on him. He was obviously fishing, he stood stock-still, then every now and again he poised in the strike pose, hunched, with his neck drawn back.

What interested me almost more than the Heron himself were the passers-by. Some walked past completely oblivious, others noticed but were uninterested, and then there were those that paused and smiled. Some stopped just a moment to watch whilst others reached for the ubiquitous mobile phone. I was heartened to see that all of them treated the bird with respect. They didn’t approach too close or move unnecessarily for the whole 20 minutes I watched him he was not disturbed once and was able to catch and eat three fish.

People passing on the bridge noticed him and went down for a closer look and a younger man with a basketball cap stopped took a few photos and then, as he moved off gave the Heron a little wave as if in thanks. Lastly, I met a couple who knew the individual, they lived close by they told me they saw the Heron regularly and had named him Henry. A fitting name for a very fine heron.

Turning back to the fishing, I have spent many hours watching both Kingfishers and Herons whilst hunting, and anecdotally I can honestly say that the Heron has a better strike rate. On one occasion some years ago, I watched a Heron down at the Saxon Mill hoover up several fish and then follow it with a bank vole! Up in Scotland, I saw a Heron catch an eel nearly as long as he was tall, wrestle with it and then swallow it.

Henry was no different today catching a sizeable wish and downing it in one.

Fox Behaviour

 

This week I was delayed in collecting my camera cards and so I had two weeks of data to analyse. Sadly on Otter cam, there were no otters sighted however the local vixen did frequent this spot beneath the willows.  She spent over an hour sitting in one spot between the two main roots. This is a favourite spot for several of our mammals, a badger has spent time scratching here as has the female Otter. The clips of these two are at the bottom.

Having the Fox exhibiting a range of behaviours I had the opportunity to undertake a study of the behaviour and develop an ethogram. An ethogram is a tool used by behaviourists to record behaviours and the time spent undertaking that behaviour. The results can be seen in the table and pie chart below.

The analysis shows that despite the vixen being comfortable enough for it to rest here she still remains alert to sights and sounds. Sleeping does take place but these seem to be done in short spells with minimal movements that did not trigger the camera. She was quite fastidious, using the time awake to groom her fur across the whole of her body. There was much scratching made mostly by the right rear paw.

Spring is here

 The last few days have been gorgeous, today, in particular, was lovely and warm with clear blue skies. In the last week or so the snowdrops have given way to the daffodils and today I saw the first celandines in flower.

The willow trees are just coming into bud and today I pottered about my patch looking to increase the amount of wet woodland. The willows I planted a few years ago to thicken the wood have taken well and so I took 7 or 8 good branches about a metre long and pushed them into the soft ground to extend coverage across the front. It's very easy to propagate willows in this way, obviously, this is not a genetically diverse way of doing it but the premise of more to develop wet and fallen wood stock in the area, which in turn will be great for insects and subsequently birds.

With the high winds over the last winter a couple of the Alders are a little worse for wear and they do not seem to be being replaced in the stock. There are plenty of 20-30 and older Alders on my page along the backwater but I cannot think of a single young tree or sapling coming through. There are plenty of dead trees which the woodpeckers love but slowly they are falling (which I leave in place). I think this year I may buy and plant a few Alders if I can find a suitable stockist.

Moving away from the plants the Roe Deer were about again, just the usual three and I m constantly amazed at how quickly they can blend into the background. 

Given how mild the winter has been this year I was not expecting many of the winter visiting finches but this weekend saw several flocks of Siskin and Lesser Redpoll. The Redpoll were still on site today and I managed to get a shot of this handsome fellow.

There are still plenty of signs of Otter, in fact yesterday I found a new otter spraint in a very different location. I have noticed that the otters on otter cam like to climb on a fallen log and spraint there. When at the far end of the meadow I found a spraint a good metre off the ground on a horizontal branch.

In the first photo, you can see the distinctive fish scales and the second shows the branch on which it was left, quite a height off the ground. I m guessing that this stops and floodwater washing away the mark? I perhaps should have given it a smell just to check its origin, something to check out next time.

Roe Deer - A local success story

 At the outset of lockdown, I spent my 1 hour of exercise time down the mill on my patch and set up a camera on what I call the bridge. It was over these few weeks that I started to see more and more Roe Deer, in fact, it appeared that they had now become residents on the site.

The area is perfect for Roe Deer. I am used to seeing Roe Deer in woodlands. Around here I have only ever seen them in Warwick Castle Park when I was doing Heronry Census work. My patch is not heavily wooded but it does have a large stretch of scrubland that connects to the railway line. Railways are great conduits for deer to move along and why there are Muntjac in Priory Park in the middle of the town.

Throughout March 2020 I saw small herds of between 3 and 4 individuals some of which were picked up on my main camera. As you can see from the graph below this camera picked solo visits as early as 2015 but it was in 2020 that they started to be seen more regularly. The graph shows the trend as an index of Relative Abundance. This is a function of how many times a Deer is seen and in what number.

It shows a general increasing trend with 2020 being a particularly good year. In both 2020 and 2021, they bred on the site. 

At present, I most regularly see three individuals. An adult buck with antlers, a young male with only pedicles and a female.

The dominant buck is quite bold. The antlers are not fully grown yet, they can reach 30 cms in length and have up to three tines (points). Full-sized antlers do not grow until 3 years old, so it is possible this buck is around 2-3 years old.

Here you can see the Buck with his Antlers in Velvet in January

When not in velvet the full antler set will look like this.

The young buck is possibly last years kid, pedicles tend to develop at 3-4 months and his seem well developed but not enough yet to start growing antlers although these could be the start of his new regrowth

In this image, you can clearly see the 'buds' of new antlers coming through

Roe deer do not form large herds, they prefer small family units or to be solitary. I noticed that once the Kid is born the buck tends to not be seen with the Doe and Kid until the autumn when the family group seems to reform.

The female in the winter can be identified by the anal tush of hair,

The annual cycle as recorded by otter cam, which points across a well-liked rest area can be seen below. 

It shows that they are most active at that site in October, interestingly according to the literature this is the time of fewest reports however this I think is an artefact of using a Trail Cam rather than visual sightings. The distribution of sightings on this camera indicates that the deer are moving into and out of the area. The peak in July coincides with the rut.

Reproductively Roe Deer exhibit embryonic diapause meaning that although mating occurs in July/August the egg only implants in December. Therefore young are born in May/June when the vegetation is high and there is plenty of food. Twins is a common occurrence for Roe does but I have only recorded single kids. This could be because the habitat is sub-optimal or there is an element of postnatal predation from the foxes.

Using data from both the main cam and otter cam I have looked at when they appear most on camera. This graph indicates some level of activity but should be considered with caution.

The graph suggests that the deer are most active in mid-morning and mid-afternoon. This counters the literature that shows that their peak activity is at dawn and dusk. This difference can be explained when it is understood that both camera locations are in quiet well-covered areas. It is in these spots that the deer have chosen to rest up during the day. Whilst they may not rest or sleep, although that has been observed they do seem to like spending a lot of time just chilling there. They often spend between 30 mins to an hour quietly browsing or drinking.

Roe Deer are very well camouflaged and more often than not they see me long before I see them. They are amazingly agile and can disappear into the undergrowth very quickly and for large animals, the largest in this area they do so remarkably well.

Mammal Week

 Over the past week, I have had an extra camera out to view small mammals. In just 7 days they recorded 10 species of mammal with several particularly good shots of the Roe Deer more of which to follow in subsequent posts.

All that was missing were the very rare occurrences of the Weasel and Mink. The site has also recorded Mole, Hedgehog, Rabbit, Stoat and Polecat although most of these have only ever been seen once.

Badger

Roe Deer

Muntjac

Grey Squirrel

Otter

Fox

Wood Mouse

Bank Vole

Common Shrew

Oakmoss Lichen

 One of the pleasures of patch watching is that you can always turn up something new. You become so familiar with the area that new arrivals stand out. In this case today I noticed a species that must have been here for years. Whilst finishing off my walk this morning I noticed a vibrant light/white green lichen on a branch. Many of the trees are covered in lichens of different types and colours but this one caught my eye. 

It was on a dead branch jutting out at eye level and its bright colour and shape made it stand out. It looked fresh and new, like it had just grown there today. No wind nor rain had sullied it. It was intact and strong, each tendril intact and turgid.

I have a kind of Stockholm situation with lichen as a whole. They are a fascinating organism, part fungi, part algae living in symbiosis and I got my greatest education in them during my time at University. Between my 2nd and 3rd Years, I spent 10 days in the Burren in Western Ireland studying Mosses, Fungi and Lichens. As an ornithologist and zoologist, I was never particularly fond of the less mobile species on the plant, and the ten days was tough to stay interested.

Despite my reticence, I came to appreciate them greatly. I know notice them whereas once they were ignored and I understand their growth forms and ecology There is a simple beauty to them and an elegance. The leafy structures are good indicators of clean air and they are important sources of essential oils and other chemicals.

This particular lichen appears to be the Oakmoss Lichen - Evernia prunastri. This species is not an uncommon one and grows readily on trees. In France, it is harvested for its perfume fixatives and in Italy, it is grown as a bio-monitor  to analyse bioaccumulation of heavy metals.

My Field Kit

 

For the first post this year I m going to explain my day to day field equipment.

This is the list of things that I have in my field kit that I take out whenever I go out surveying or wildlife watching.

I have two bags that go out with me. The main bag has my binoculars, I would love to have a pair of Swarovski but I find my current pair Bushnell 10x40 more than up to the job. They are a great little pair, perfectly weighted and with good optics for the price.

I always ensure I have a notebook and something to write with. Ideally, a good fieldworker would use a pencil but I manage with pens as long as I don’t get it wet.

For comfort’s sake, I have a small fold away stool in case I want a rest or  I am staking out a location. To help with taking records for my weekly patch survey I have a wind speed and temperature centre and spare batteries for it. It’s a simple bit of kit and only cost about £30. I have a compass to check windspeed.

I find a leatherman multi-tool useful to have. Its range of tools helps clear back twigs or bushes from a camera line of sight or help fit trail cam mounts. To maintain my trail cameras I try to carry replacement batteries for them as well as spare SDHC cards.

Lastly, my main bit of kit is a cap, I find this useful for shielding my eyes from the sun or rain and is very flexible.

In my second bag, I carry my Canon Camera with 100-400mm lens that I use to shoot wildlife.

I prefer to shoot from the hand but I do have a tripod that I occasionally use.

This kit keeps me mobile and well equipped for nearly all my needs.