Highs and Lows

This blogpost has turned out very differently from how I had imagined it but that is the vagaries of nature conservation and life itself, the ups and downs.

Last week my patch experienced some severe flooding, rain, snow and then frost swelled the river significantly. Not as high as last year’s winter floods I was nevertheless worried for the safety of my cameras and Otter Cam in particular.

With some trepidation I slowly counted off my cameras until I reached Otter Cam, to my disappointment the camera and even the post it was attached to was gone.  I feared it had been lost for ever but conducted a search. I wasn’t entirely optimistic, the heavy log that the otters like to spraint on had been lifted from the floor and was now lodged on a branch about half a metre above the ground. In a stroke of amazing luck I managed to spot the fence post which the camera had been attached to. It was lodged in a pile of flotsam and jetsam against a large tree. I pulled it free and was pleased to see the camera still attached although now it was coated in broken up undergrowth and thick with frost.

I removed the camera, apart from frozen it looked intact. I cleaned the lens and removed the detritus. It didn’t look wet inside, mainly because it was frozen. I knew the batteries would be shot and so I replaced them and then with great trepidation turned it on. It worked. Not only did it still work it continued to record the whole time.

I was amazed, this camera was not one of the high end Bushnells, Reconyx or the like but a much cheaper Gardepro A3S that I had bought of Amazon at a fraction of the price. I was already impressed by the quality of the camera and now I was bowled over. I recorded a clip and even wrote to tell Gardepro how pleased I was. I really would recommend this company. The device is as good as any of the higher spec models by other makers and I have got some great footage using them.

I was conscious however that one of the reasons it had survived was the severe frost. The water ingress had not had time to rust the contacts, so I purchased another camera to replace it and take that one back for some TLC and to act as my back up camera.

Today with this new camera I went down to do the swap out and make sure the camera was set up correctly, disappointingly however when I got there the camera was gone. Nowhere to be seen. I had noticed some footprints that weren’t my own on my private land, but as long as people do not cause trouble I don’t mind too much, but my camera was gone as was the bracket that attached it to the fence post.

This sort of loss is to be expected, people are sadly people, and I had left the camera unprotected in what I thought was a discrete and out of the way place. I commiserated with a fellow cam user on the Mammal Society Facebook page when he lost a camera and pointed out that for me it was not really the loss of the camera, expensive yes, but cameras can be replaced, it was the loss of data that got me most. I would rather them have the camera and leave the SD card. It’s probably the scientist in me but the loss of seven days of information is gutting. I am at present working on analyzing 10 years of data for my main camera in a hedgerow and I know how much every capture means to drawing reasonable conclusions.

So instead of an uplifting tale of the little camera that could we have a melancholy ending in which I am now going to have to spend out on python locks, padlocks, new brackets and find a safe location that still fits the methodology I am using, and in the process have lost at least 2 weeks of data.

This is the tenth camera I have lost and the fourth that has been stolen. I doubt it will be the last which will be lost to theft or vandalism. I need to be philosophical and focus on the amazing things I have seen with them, and will see as I enter the 11^th year of Main Cam and the 5^th year of Otter Cam.

For more information on the excellent GardePro Cameras visit their website HERE