France Part II - Trailcam

I'd been wondering if these things were any good since I saw them being used on a wildlife program on TV. So I decided to take the plunge and fork out the best part of 200 quid on one to take on my trip to France.

Here are the results.

I think the first one is a young and very nervous Roe Deer.

Later on and after it got light an older Deer appeared for a short time.

This Fox appeared on the first night but it didn't quite know what to make of the jam sandwiches that I'd left out as bait for the Pine Marten.

Finally and after several blank nights my main target - the Pine Marten - showed up. Normally a nocturnal animal (or so I thought) it appeared before it even got dark.

The Pine Marten made one more appearance, this time in the dark where it appeared to show some displeasure at being filmed!

For several days I had been putting food (mainly nuts) out for the birds in the hope that I could tempt some Woodpeckers down onto a tree stump to photograph them. I never saw as much as a sparrow but the food kept dissapearing as though it had been hoovered up. So I decided to set the trailcam up on a tripod to try and capture the culprit..

..it didn't take long...

French Assortment

I spent last week in France at a holiday cottage near to Perassay, a small village in the Indre region. Me and the wife were the first people to stay at our friends (Mo and Steve) newly restored and converted dwelling.

They've done an excellent job in converting the building (part of a very old barn) from a sheep shelter! See here - Stargazer Cottage

The cottage is in prime birding terrortory too. For example, Golden Orioles can be heard from the garden. Seeing them is another matter though as anyone who's tried to spot this elusive bird will testify. I just wish I'd got there earlier in spring before the green canopy covered the trees!

Besides the birds there is plenty of other wildlife in the area. Red Squirrels, Wild Boars, Pine Martins are some of the species that I failed to see. Here are some pictures of the stuff that I did manage to photograph...

Swallowtail Butterfly - Mo had kept a pupa in a glass jar all winter long and as luck would have it the butterfly emerged whilst I was there to photograph it.

We spent a day at La Brenne. Known as “The Land of a Thousand Lakes” it is a nature park which covers a large area and is home to many wetland birds as well as other interesting plants and animals.

Grey Heron 

You would have thought that large, juicy Frogs living in France would keep a low profile but not a bit of it. This lot could be heard from the car park. In fact they were so loud that at first I thought they were some type of exotic duck.

 Great White Eagret

Purple Heron 

Fresh Water Tortoise

I thought only turtles had tails but the info board on the wall of the hide said that these were Tortoises?

I spent a while driving around the deserted country lanes near to our cottage and did the bird watching from the car. I heard and caught fleeting glimpses of many birds but the only ones to pose long enough for me to stop the car, lean out of the window and get some shots were these Red Backed Shrikes - male first then the female.

I thought it a bit strange to find this Roe Deer(?) feeding during the daylight hours.

Non-Birds...

...the other day a friend asked if I took any photos of wildlife other than birds. I said I'd like to but there's usually nothing to see. Birds can be difficult to approach but come to think of it, compared to mammals they're quite easy.

I looked back through my collection of RAW images and found a few non-bird shots that are vaguely presentable so here they are...

I woke-up this Fox one spring morning at Adel Dam nature reserve, just north of Leeds. It wasn't at all impressed by my presence and promptly went back to sleep. I suppose it helped that I was in a hide and all he could see was my lens poking out of the window.

No animals here but I thought a reminder of spring was in order during this unusually long period of freezing cold weather we're suffering at the moment. This is a scene from the woods at Bretton Lakes during Bluebell 'season'.

Aren't Woodmouse's cute? My first encounter with one of these came when I was sat at the rear of the hide at Bretton. He was very keen on peanuts!

This young Red Squirrel was a visitor to the garden of a cottage I hired in South-West Scotland.

Below is an adult I came across during a walk on the grounds of Craig Farm during the same holiday. I was renting the cottage from the owners of the farm - West Holmhead Cottage

I had to get up very early in the morning to spot this Roe Deer. I stopped the car in the road and took the shot from the window.

This one was taken a year later whilst staying at the same cottage. The adult Roe Deers tend to leave their young hidden in the undergrowth. That was the case here but the mother chose a place very near to the road. She bolted and left the fawn to fend for itself when she saw me.

Notice the bored look on his face? This Common Toad sat impassively as I arranged the blades of grass so I could get a clear shot of it but I think he was beginning to lose patience at the end. The picture was taken in Strid Wood in the Yorkshire Dales.

I think this is a Four Spotted Chaser? Taken at Allerthorpe Common YWT reserve in North Yorkshire - Allerthorpe Common

I don't suppose this set would be complete without a Rabbit?

A Spotted Wood butterfly. Taken in a wood of all places.

This friendly Bank Vole was competing for peanuts with the Woodmouse pictured at the start of this blog. Here he is getting greedy and trying to figure out how to carry two at a time. I had to use flash with these shots (and the toad) because it was very dark in the undergrowth.