The First Yew View Otter Holt Camera goes in as the Badgers move in again….

There has been quite a lot of camera maintenance to do over the last few weeks at Yew View. With so much cabling and technology, it all needs checking and maintaining. It can be time consuming when cameras go down, as it can take a while to troubleshoot where the issue is and then to resolve it.

Our Kingfisher cam has been a bit hit and miss at the moment, but it has recorded some clips showing us that the kingfishers are still around, but not as regularly as they have been in the past. It is always fantastic to see them though….

One of the other cameras picked up this muntjac pair early one morning, by one of our other badger setts. It always amazes me that they stay on site as there are lots of dogs, but I have filmed them quite a lot in the last month or so…..

It has been very quiet in the badger sett chambers over the summer. A few visits, but very little activity. This often happens. This is a satellite sett, so only gets used sporadically and it is about 1/2 mile from the main sett. Over the last month, a number of individuals have started sleeping in here, sometimes for long periods in the night and once for a whole day. One of them is the female who visited a lot last year. She las a lump on her muzzle. There are two youngsters with her; probably her cubs from this year. There seems to be another female with them too. This is the most individuals we have had in the chamber at one time and I’m delighted to see them back again!

I have been waiting to get the cameras inside the new otter holt. Due to the location of this holt, we have had to put another power supply in and a network switch. This switch then had to be connected to another switch (which involved a lot of fiddling and accessing of ports). Dave and I had built some frames on which to mount the cameras, so they could easily be lowered into the holt. They need to be able to be removed for maintenance and cleaning and also if the river floods. The cameras have been loaned to us by Hikvision and they are dome IP cameras, that can be zoomed and focused via the PC.

You can never be really sure what the image is going to be like inside a space like this, until you lower the camera in….. it is quite nerve-wracking, as a lot of time and money has been invested in this project! I was delighted! At full view, I can see the whole chamber and I can zoom in to a section of it, hopefully where an otter….. or another animal may sleep. I still have some work to do inside the chamber and some slight camera adjustments, but I feel I am finally making progess…. it is very exciting.

The camera is linked to iCatcher Console, so will record any  early visitors. I had another camera mounted, facing the river and the lower entrance. This week I filmed both mink and otter….

I hope to get the other camera in in the next week and finished the chambers and seal them up… then it just a matter of waiting with fingers crossed…….



from www.wildlifekate.co.uk https://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/2019/09/15/the-first-yew-view-otter-holt-camera-goes-in-as-the-badgers-move-in-again/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2019 off to a reasonable start

Image
Overcast, 5°, light NNW. A Little Egret seen today on the way out to Lollingdon and appeared to drop down near Amwell Spring. The hill hosted around 100 Fieldfare and a flock of c50 Meadow Pipit for a time before moving off over the top. Several Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer around the hill and a single Corn Bunting . A small flock of c20 Pied Wagtail feeding out with the Sheep. A few more Fieldfare and Redwing scattered around the Lollingdon area, a Goldcrest , Grey Heron , Kestrel , a couple of Jay , 2 Bullfinch and several Starling amongst other species. A Brambling in a private garden. Per Alan Dawson. 2 Blackcap in TW’s garden and 2 Chiffchaff at CSW. The flock of c60 Golden Plover still around Cholsey Hill. Brambling (courtesy Alan Dawson) from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-off-to-reasonable-start.html
Read more

A Butterfly day

Image
Another sunny day, 24°, light E. A walk alongside the Bunk line from Church road to the bypass. Butterflies were the order of the day with literally hundreds of Meadow Brown on the wing today. They were everywhere. Another 8 Painted Lady seen with some looking very tatty after a presumably long flight and ageing. Best one of the day was a single Silver-washed Fritillary seen flying around a large garden before disappearing from view. Good numbers of Marbled White all along the route. Other species noted were: Small Skipper , Large Skipper , Large White , Small White , Green-veined White , Brimstone (1), Brown Argus (3), Common Blue (8), Red Admiral (6), Small Tortoiseshell (c20), Comma (3), Speckled Wood (2), Ringlet (12) and Small Heath (2). Some thistles were in flower on the edge of a bean field and these held the majority of Painted Lady , Small Tort and Marbled White . Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle (M&F), Large Red Damselfly and Southern Hawke...
Read more

Dormice and Hibernation

Image
A few weeks ago we had our quick dormice pre-hibernation checks to make sure they were all OK for the winter, and confirm how many kits we have bred over the summer. Good news!.. Both our pairs have had large litters of dormice, and so we have many babies to prepare for release next year. As part of the Common Dormouse Captive Breeders Groups (CDCBG) we, along with many other holders across the south, breed dormice as part of the studbook for release out in to the wild. Once out of hibernation next Spring they will all be collected up and released back in to the wild in collaboration with the Peoples Trust for Endangered Species (PTES). We do have two species of dormice in the UK. The native, calm, small and adorable hazel dormouse above. Below is the larger, bitey and much more erratic edible dormouse that was introduced to the UK. You can really see the size difference with both in the hand like this. Both species of dormice are entering, or have already started, to h...
Read more