Elusive Mr Fox

Finally another capture of a fox.  After hearing gunshots locally during last evening, I was concerned a fox might have been the target.  But at least this one has survived to see another day.

 

Another fine day in mid-Wales

Summer visitor, a Swallow near my bedroom window.

 

 

 

 

My cat came with me this evening to help set up the trail cameras!

 

 

 

Badgers Know Where To Poop!

So good to see the badger latrine being well used!

An Explosion of Blossom!

No other word for it.  An explosion.  Suddenly, as if overnight, every tree that can explode into blossom has done just that.  The hillsides are dotted with white trees as the Hawthorns decide that now their time has come at last, after the harsh winter and depressing, wet spring.  Spring is the new summer!  Hot weather, clear blue skies, early morning birdsong, it's all finally come together and the Welsh hillsides are blossoming.  Below is just a taste of the fabulous blossom, already starting to fall like confetti at a Royal Wedding.

Hedwig appears to have flown the nest, no activity on the trail camera except sheep and a badger giving it the occasional wobble.  Lots of twitting and tawooing going on around in the nearby trees though. 

A Lilac injects some additional colour into the landscape

My cat enjoys the view too

Cowslips

Hedwig

For want of a better name I've called him Hedwig.  Of course, Hedwig could be a girl and definitely isn't a Snowy Owl, so the name is all wrong but I love Harry Potter so Hedwig it is.  There seems to be only the one owlet so parents only have the one mouth to feed.  He/she seems to be doing very nicely, thank you.

I didn't get close but had a decent lens on me luckily.  I was as quiet as a mouse and kept well away so as not to disturb him. I spent quite some time just watching.

From this view of the tree, from a short distance you really wouldn't know Hedwig was sitting there, he blends in so well.  Taken at about 7pm this evening.

The Horse Chestnut candles are looking wonderful today against a very blue sky.

Part of an ancient wall running across the land

Tawny Owl and Chick

Absolutely thrilled to get these videos from the Browning trail camera!  Fingers were firmly crossed that I'd set the camera up ok and that the sheep wouldn't push it over.  Like the badgers, they do love to snuffle the cameras!  But all was ok.  Chick is quite large and to my inexperienced eyes looks as though it's getting ready to fledge.

Evidence!

Badgers do love to snuffle over the cameras and this time had left it pointing towards the ground.  But actually not a complete disaster as it had captured this charming video of a Great Tit probably finding the odd one or two peanuts left behind by the badger.

This would be the culprit!

Here's the Apeman camera in a different area, quality nowhere near as good as the browning but it let's me see that wherever I scatter a few peanuts, there will be a badger!  More badger snuffles, they do like to get close up and personal.

 

I'm beginning to know what to look for when I'm out and about on the land and found this badger footprint a short time ago.  

Owl pellets I found under a very large hole in a tree

This morning when out picking up my cameras I heard the very faint sounds of probably a young bird coming from this hole in the tree.  Have set a camera up nearby.  Not holding out too much hope of capturing anything but you never know.

So this piece of garden we are going to leave uncut this year and see what happens.  These spring flowers are already well established so hopefully more will follow.  It will be interesting to see what springs up.  See what I did there? 

Middle of May

I love the look of mild surprise on this badger's face when he finally spots the camera!  It doesn't seem to matter where on the land I scatter a few peanuts, a badger always shows up to hoover them up.  Except of course where I've put the better quality Browning camera.  That one was pointing at the ground, all the peanuts had gone and the only images on the camera were of me setting it up and turning it on, and a couple of blurred unidentifiable images during the night.  It's almost as though whatever is out there is determined to add to my frustration!

A view of the land in daylight

Redstart taken at some distance through a small bathroom window.  He's been perching on the top of this bird feeder every morning, shame he wouldn't turn around

This Woodpecker decided to perch on our window this morning, perhaps she was asking to come in?

Springtime, birdsong, bunnies and sunshine

A disappointing night on the trail camera.  Funny how I got badgers and fox previously and not a single rabbit and last night it was all rabbits and nothing else.  Maybe not helped because I'd run out of peanuts to tempt them to the camera and only had some stale Yorkshire pudding!  Who'd have thought bunnies would have liked Yorkshire pud, but sure enough I have video of them eating it and it's all gone now so it was definitely bunnies wot ate it.  I did check through to see if I'd missed anything and found the early morning captures were a treat just for the birdsong.  This next video is a little later than the dawn chorus, but a bird or two must have been really close to the camera so I chose this.  

Turn up the sound, it's beautiful!

 A beautiful day so spent it tidying the veggie patch when I spied this little critter.  Common Lizard sunbathing on an old telegraph pole.

 

Spring Blossom 

 

Greedy Cat!

Damned cat!! I'd put the better Browning camera in the same spot as the previous night where I'd caught  a brief glimpse of a fox, this time with some chicken nuggets I'd found at the bottom of the freezer.  I thought it was in a spot reasonably safe from the cat, amongst loads of nettles and a bit out of the way in the copse.  But then I hadn't taken into account that this is Patrick we're dealing with, our greedy but lovely rescue cat, who is forever hungry.  I really shouldn't have been surprised!  So all I got from the Browning was several videos of Patrick filling his face.  Great.

Second camera was placed further into the copse and yes sure enough Patrick was spied there too.  Clearly I don't feed him enough.  Anyway, success again with badger and thankfully fox.  We'd had a huge storm of rain during the evening and it looks as though it left a splodge of water on the lens.  This, added to the camera being the inferior Apeman, means that yet again slightly disappointing video, but at least good to see badger (probably more than one) and fox still around.

Getting up to Date

Still catching up from earlier in the year.  By now I've explored and found a second badger latrine on a different part of the land.  The trail camera shows it being well used each night and here is an example from March 2018.  Sorry the quality isn't the best but at this point I still only had my Apeman cameras, better than nothing but very grainy in the dark.

A blessing in disguise when one of the Apeman cameras stopped recording.  Luckily it was still under guarantee and I got a very quick refund from Amazon.  Say what you like about Amazon, it's an excellent service.  So this time, having well and truly gotten the trail camera bug, I decided to invest in something much better.  The following is one of the first videos from the new Browning Recon Force Extreme bought through Nature Spy at £169.99 with a free 16GB SD card.  Over twice the price of the Apeman, but in my opinion worth every penny.  Turn the sound up and you hear the badger snuffling up the handful of peanuts I'd scattered to keep him in front of the camera for more than two seconds.

 

Now into April and for the first time I tried a camera down by the river.  I was lucky enough to see this otter!  I'd heard that there are otters in the river but wasn't sure if that was true and had certainly never seen one. Shame I had to put the Apeman down there as I'd already set the Browning up elsewhere for the badgers.  Have tried a few times since and not seen it again, just the inevitable badger!

  

Now into May and "almost" getting bored with badgers (no not really!) so although this isn't a great video of the badger, it was gratifying to see a Tawny Owl fly in and land on the middle post of the picture.  Perfect!

The is the image I've been waiting for for the past four months.  Finally the briefest glimpse of a fox last night!  What a relief.  When I played the video I could only glimpse something passing by very quickly, which at first I thought was just a rabbit, but it didn't look right.  Played it back in slow motion and found this, only just in frame but unmistakable!  At first glance it's just nettles, but top left of centre Mr (or Mrs) Fox is just about showing his/her face,

My relief will be more understandable when you realise that I live directly next door to hunt kennels.  But more about that at a later date.  Let's concentrate on the positives for now. Thrilled with this,  hopefully it will be back and I can get some decent videos.

Introduction to Diary of a Welsh Landscape

I am beginning this record of wildlife, nature and anything else that comes to mind in my patch of mid-Wales. I am writing mostly for my own entertainment and to keep a record of the wildlife and the natural world around me and to add my musings and observations.  The hills and valleys of mid-Wales are stunningly beautiful, sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh.  Here will be a record of the good - and the bad - but mostly trying to focus on the good.

So, first I need to back-track to August 2017 when I purchased my first trail camera.  The first time I placed my camera out on the land I saw my first (and so far only) stoat - or is it a weasel?  Shame he only peeped around the corner!

Same night and same spot I captured this fox:

Images aren't great but I can tell you I was pretty pleased and really rather excited!  I soon found out there is nothing quite like putting a camera out on the land in some random place and waiting to see what you get.

This was using a cheapish camera bought from Amazon - a Crenova which proved to be faulty and I had to send back.  It took stills ok but no video, so back it went and I bought an Apeman to replace it for around the same price, about £70.  Soon after I bought a second Apeman as this trail camera lark was beginning to grow on me!

September 2017 I found my first badger near to where I'd discovered we had a badger latrine. Now I was buzzing with excitement.  I'd been a town dweller for many years and lived in the country for only a short time, so this was opening up a whole new world for me.

Apparently badgers and foxes will share the same latrine as I would see.  This fox was enjoying the few scraps of food I'd put out to attract whoever might find it near to the camera.

Then in November 2017 I was entertained one lunchtime by this visitor outside my window, luckily I had my little Sony camera to hand and was so thrilled to see this fox catch a small rodent and eat it while I watched.

And the final photo for this entry is from December 2017 and is worryingly the last time I saw a fox on the land.  To be continued . . . . . . . . .