10-years Camera Trapping

 On the 31st December 2024 it was 10 years since I started recording wildlife using Trail Cameras on my patch. In those 10 years a camera in the same hedgerow has been recording 24 hours a day for 7 days a week.

Having finally made sure all the data is recorded in an Excel database I can now start to analyse the information, this is going to take sometime so I thought in the short term I would share some of the data that I have collected so far.

In the 10-years the camera recorded 3033 days, a total of  83% of the time, creating 19073 separate data points based on 10 minute blocks in which animals were recorded.

	Percentage Active		No. 10 Min blocks
	Mammal	Bird	Mammal	Bird
2015	78	78	40752	40752
2016	89	89	47088	47088
2017	76	76	39888	39888
2018	90	90	47088	47088
2019	84	84	44352	44352
2020	92	58	48672	30528
2021	80	80	41472	41472
2022	70	70	36576	36576
2023	76	76	40176	40176
2024	96	96	50688	50688
			436752	418608

In total 51 Species were recorded, 31 bird species, 19 species of mammal and 1 reptile were recorded.

The most abundant species were Blackbird, Song Thrush, Woodpigeon, Wood Mouse, Grey Squirrel and Fox.

Taxa	Species	No. Blocks	Weighted	RAI K- Weighted
Bird	Blackbird	3595	3732	187.13
Bird	Song Thrush	1312	1339	67.14
Bird	Woodpigeon	691	937	46.98
Bird	Robin	743	750	37.61
Bird	Dunnock	422	450	22.56
Bird	Redwing	188	227	11.38
Bird	Magpie	180	188	9.43
Bird	Great Tit	156	164	8.22
Bird	Pheasant	115	126	6.32
Bird	Chaffinch	81	120	6.02
Bird	Wren	78	78	3.91
Bird	Jay	59	60	3.01
Bird	Goldfinch	22	25	1.25
Bird	Blue Tit	22	22	1.10
Bird	Bullfinch	19	21	1.05
Bird	Jackdaw	11	19	0.95
Bird	Woodcock	15	15	0.75
Bird	Water Rail	12	12	0.60
Bird	Treecreeper	11	11	0.55
Bird	Greenfinch	6	6	0.30
Bird	Moorhen	4	4	0.20
Bird	Blackcap	3	3	0.15
Bird	Stock Dove	3	3	0.15
Bird	Tawny Owl	3	3	0.15
Bird	Chiffchaff	2	2	0.10
Bird	Sparrowhawk	2	2	0.10
Bird	Carrion Crow	1	1	0.05
Bird	Great Spotted Woodpecker	1	1	0.05
Bird	Long-tailed Tit	1	1	0.05
Bird	Marsh Tit	1	1	0.05
Bird	Nuthatch	1	1	0.05
Mammal	Wood Mouse	3840	3960	198.57
Mammal	Grey Squirrel	2689	2737	137.24
Mammal	Fox	1656	1674	83.94
Mammal	Muntjac	1481	1622	81.33
Mammal	Badger	1166	1210	60.67
Mammal	Roe Deer	176	216	10.83
Mammal	Brown Rat	53	53	2.66
Mammal	Cat	39	39	1.96
Mammal	Rabbit	24	24	1.20
Mammal	Common Shrew	23	23	1.15
Mammal	Dog	21	21	1.05
Mammal	Weasel	20	20	1.00
Mammal	Field Vole	11	11	0.55
Mammal	Mink	3	3	0.15
Mammal	Bank Vole	1	1	0.05
Mammal	Hedgehog	1	1	0.05
Mammal	Mole	1	1	0.05
Mammal	Otter	1	1	0.05
Mammal	Polecat	1	1	0.05
Reptile	Grass Snake	1	1	0.05
		18968	19943

Over the 10 years there have been some winner and some losers.

In the analysis I want to explore each species fortunes, calculate species richness, relative abundance, species diversity and evenness, similarity, niche overlap and do a deep dive on the activity cycles of all the species that I have enough data for.

This may take me the rest of this year!!