I purchased a trail cam recently, one of the Bushnell remote camera traps, and have just started to experiment with it. The photo below is of a Badger at a sett near my house taken at 04:20 this morning - according to the camera!
I can certainly see the value of these cameras, particularly for nocturnal wildlife, but it could also be useful in daylight. The image quality is never going to be anything like the standard digital camera. It will also record video but I haven't tried that yet.
The benefits for me are;
1. Prove the presence of wildlife in an area/specific location,
2. Provide information on the timing of movements, with a view to taking standard photos,
3. Provide details on numbers or possibly age or sex of the wildlife in an area,
4. Give some indication of what the wildlife is doing.
Early days yet, but I have a number of holes in the ground and in trees where I would like to identify the occupants.
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| Badger |
Thanks to June Oliver, James and I had the chance to visit the sett where she had photographed the adult below. There were two cubs in long grass, so it was very difficult to get them with their heads up and no grass in the way, but at least one shot came out OK.
They are amazing animals and seemed quite unconcerned with our presence near by.
Sad to think so many adults will be killed and cubs left abandoned with the cull in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
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| Badger cub |
June Oliver sent me this great photo of an adult Badger taken on the outskirts of Matlock.
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| Badger (June Oliver) |
Surprising, to me at least, the amount of Badger activity around a local sett over the last couple days. I would have thought given the weather and temperature they would be hibernating but four other entrances to this sett showed plenty of foot prints in the snow.
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| Badger sett |
