A week of Winter Wildlife

Last Sunday -when I found the feathers- we put the camera trap out. We picked it up earlier today and we got quite a lot. It has also snowed here recently and I found fox paw prints in the snow on the way to picking it up. That had already got me excited. At the moment it is fox mating season as well. So enjoy one week of winter wildlife!

Sunday

The day we put it out we only caught a squirrel.

Monday

Like I said earlier it is fox mating season and I don't think these 2 foxes got on very well. Watch what happens after this one walks behind the tree.

Tuesday

Well Tuesday was the best day of the week. We got plenty of fox footage and great quality as well.

Here is one taking the fatball we left out for it. This was at 5 in the morning.

This one gave the camera the death stare.

This one was caught mid jump.

At 10am we caught a fox in broad daylight.

Now some videos

On Tuesday it started to snow.

Wednesday

More foxes

Thursday

Snow Crow

Friday

Finally on Friday we caught a badger. Not our best badger, but still a badger.

And that is it for the wildlife this week. Hope you enjoyed!

Battle of the Bird of Prey

 I had just put the camera trap out ( it is out at the time of writing this, in the spot where we caught some deer) and was walking home along the canal when I saw some feathers. My first thought was buzzard but I knew it could have been a tawny owl as well.

Here are the three feathers - but they haven't been lost naturally as they are attached to flesh!

What bird did these feathers belong to?

Like I said earlier I reckon these are buzzard feathers. The only other bird would be a tawny owl. There are plenty of buzzards in the area but there are still a few owls. Here is a comparison between the feathers.

Tawny owl feather

Buzzard feathers

Both are quite similar and those are the best images I could find but the feathers here could be from different areas of the bird hence them looking different to the ones I have. But like I said I am sure it was a buzzard.

What happened?

My guess is that the bird got in a fight with another animal and a little chunk of it got torn off. I reckon it was earlier this morning before people started walking along the canal as there was still blood on the end of the feather. It may have been resting but then got attacked by another animal. It then flew off still losing it's feathers since it was injured.

Suspects

My main suspect is a red fox.

They have been known to attack buzzards mainly to scare them off.

Pictures taken by me :-)

The fox probably bit into the buzzard, not killing it but injuring it and scaring it off.

Also the other week I found lots of pigeon feathers together in the woods. I think a fox got to that too.

So that's what I think happened to the bird which these feathers belong to. What do you think the animals involved in this fight were? And do you want to see my entire feather collection?

Please say what you think in the comments :-)

Top 5 Favourite Photos/videos of 2022

 Happy new year! 

I know I haven't been uploading for a while (my camera trap got taken in Nottinghamshire but I now have a new one)  but I will now be uploading regularly again!

Anyway these are my top 5 favourite photos/videos of 2022!

5.

Bumble bee

I love this video as the bee is so close and you can really hear it!

4.

Elusive fox 

Although its not the greatest fox video we've had this year it is certainly my favourite.

I love the way it's sneaking around and that's why it makes it into my top 5. This could also be the same 

fox at night?

3. Pheasant

We usually get foxes and badgers on the camera trap (which I really don't mind!) but its always nice to get something different. Like in this case we got a fantastic pheasant strutting around the woods.

2. Baby badger

I really couldn't decide out of the final 2 which one should come first. Anyway in place number 2 we have the cutest baby badger.

.

It's also one of our only badgers in daylight.

1. Roe deer

The number one spot of the year goes to the roe deer.

It was so unexpected as the wood isn't huge and deer often like big forests!

So those are my favourite photos/videos of the year. Stay tuned to find out what else we'll catch!