Sex Kites and Videotape

Yesterday I had all those mundane things to do. Not very exciting but they had to be done and you cant buy a slave at Tesco. Therefore, I was not expecting that much exciting to happen today. Also when I had finished doing my chores, I had to go to the Metro Centre (a big out of town shopping centre), never my favourite place to visit.

However the weather was sunny and I thought I would enjoy watching the wildlife along the route. While the bus was trundling along a red kite came into sight. Not that unusual and as my regular reader will know any day that I see the them makes it “A Red Kite Day”. Much better than a red letter day. What made this sighting worthy of comment is the bird was flying on a parallel course to the bus. It stayed that way for nearly two minutes and it came within fifteen yards of the omnibus too. It was one of those moments when I wished I had carried a camera. Great to see though, and had the bus not had to pull up to a stop the sighting would have lasted longer.

There were three main reasons why I wanted and needed to go to the shopping centre, the first was that I needed some more video tapes for the IR camera. While I have some on order via mail order, when I did my observations of the Deer recently I used what I had. So I had to get some more. While I have plenty for the other camera, this one uses a different format. Therefore I had to spend over five pounds each on three more. Also I wanted to check on the times of some of the buses as I am planing on doing some wandering. You will need to keep reading here as if I can get the access I have something special I want to go and see and film. I also wanted to get some of the regional bus tickets that will allow me to get out and explore some of the great places there are in the North East of England.

The last thing that I needed to obtain was a new colander, that's a straining device for food. I though I had better add that as I know that I have gotten myself into difficulties with my American readers who have different meanings for words that us Brits take for granted. My old colander that I have had for over twenty five years started to split. My Exs, both thought that I was a skin flint for not replacing it years ago, but it worked well and why get rid of something that is working well.

While I was looking at the kitchen utensils, I also looked at the kitchen knives. As my British reader will know in the news there has been a lot of debate about knives and knife crime. While I don't want to see people carrying knives as a weapon or potential weapon, there are times when a knife is no more than a tool. I love cooking and I do have a couple of decent kitchen knives. However the paring knife I have is a cheep one and the handle is becoming loose. So I wanted to replace this for a good quality one. I did find a Sabatier one, not cheap but it will last my lifetime. However what made this purchase worthy of comment was just how little attention the shop paid to the need to need to carry this home in a safe and non public manner. I had to ask for something to wrap the knife in. The woman even acknowledged that she hadn't thought about that when I asked how I was supposed to carry it home.

Also while on this topic, there are times when I do have the need to carry a knife. I am sensible and do not carry it openly in public spaces, but some conservation work does require using bladed tools like a knife. There have been calls in the press for knives to be banned and the carrying of them to result in a mandatory prison sentence. I can see nothing but problems, as people who have a legitimate reason for carrying a knife, a fisherman is one that springs to mind, could end up being sent to prison for going about their lawful business. The problem is the people who are carrying a knife as a weapon Further, apparently there are some young people who think that there are safe places where you can stab someone in a fight... All nonsense and it seems to me that the real difficulty is one of education.

Coming back home, I found myself on a crowded bus. The service to the village, while it could be better, more frequent, it is not that bad. While during the day the buses are not full, they are well used. It is when I find myself travelling at peek times that the importance of these services become highlighted. Because of the number of people on the bus I nearly missed seeing a couple of Badgers that were traversing around the fields of one of the farms close to the village.

As it was only six in the evening I wanted to discover what was going on. As it is the school summer holidays it did cross my mind that it was possible that the kids had disturbed the Badgers, as it is not usual for badgers to be out at this time. While I know that some kids can be a bit of a nuisance at times, the vast majority are just thoughtless rather than bad I did not think that this was likely to be the reason why the badgers were roaming at this time of day.

Therefore, I did not even stop for a cup of tea, I was gasping, and grabbed my camera and went out to see if I could find out what was occurring. While I could have waited for the bus again, I also knew that I was just as likely to get there as fast on foot.

As I got near to the satellite sett where the badgers were likely to have come from, I encountered one of the know poachers. He has a Lurcher and Terrier, classic poaching dogs. I said hello and he seemed quite nonchalant and friendly. So I was bold, and asked him if he had seen anything that could have disturbed the Badgers. He was quite open about the fact that he is a poacher but he would not do anything to harm the badgers. But he had not seen anything that could have disturbed them.

I went off felling reassured to see if I could find the tracks of the Badgers and to see if I could find any disturbance. There was non except for some fresh digging by the badgers. I could see two sets of tracks one from a sow the other from a Brock. I followed them and they did lead to the farmers field and there was indications that they were feeding and gathering bedding. As I don't have permission to go onto that farm, I could only watch from the boundary.

This was at least an hour after having first spotted them from the bus, but the badgers were still there. Further I worked out what had disturbed them, it was hormones. While I could not see clearly, I could see they were mating. I tried to track their movements but in the long grass I lost sight of them but I was able to follow the paw prints back to the sett. I am not sure but I think the male is new to the area he looks quite young but the female is about two years old and they appear to have set up a little love nest. I will have to keep my eyes open and see if I can work out what is going on. But seeing Badgers active in daylight is very rare indeed, seeing Badgers mating is almost unknown.

Filming Wildlife at Night

As I have posted about some rather serious issues in the past few days I thought I would let you know some good news. As I mentioned previously, a couple of weeks ago I ordered and paid for an Infra Red lighting system, well it arrived today. I had been having kittens (worrying about it) as I had received a letter from the Royal Mail informing me that a parcel that either I was sending or receiving was damaged in some way. Thus I needed to identify what could have been in the parcel. As there was only one thing that I had sent, I told them what that item was, and they agreed that an item similar was among the items they were trying to repatriate to the owners. But as I also have a couple of books due, I will soon have more books than the local library, I was worried about what had been damaged. Anyway, within minutes of the IR lighting arriving I get a call from the person dealing with the damaged parcel and it turns out that the item is in fact fine.

What had happened was that something, probably a printer cartridge had broken or leaked. This had meant that to save the content of a number of packages they had been opened. However, that had lead to the content becoming miss matched to the labels. It turns out it was the item I was posting out. There will be someone thinking that I have not sent it. Well as soon as I get it back I will resend it.

So it looks as though I need not have worried, oh the fun of relying on others. It is good to get the IR lights and I hope that I will soon be putting them to good use. I can not do so yet as the camera has yet to arrive.

While there are many video cameras that can film in infra red, the real difficulty is the light, or lack of it. Most are not suitable for filming wildlife, as the range of the light is far to shallow. Thus, by following the good advice I was given, I searched for the lights first, they are pre owned, then sought a camera that can operate with the lights. Again by going for something pre cared for, I get greater optical quality than I would be able to afford by buying new.

It will be interesting to use this equipment as I wonder what I have been missing that has passed close to me that I have not been aware of and if my attempts to identify wildlife by sound and dark shape has been accurate. For all I know it could be that some of what I have been seeing are the fairies wandering around with cardboard cut outs of animals.

However the real test will now be if I can actually film any of the wildlife. Knowing my luck they will all go on strike and demand union rates. At least I think the badgers will work for Peanuts.

Relocating Mammals

For the past several weeks I have been watching for the Dragonfly Nymphs that have been living in one of the many ponds and pools locally. My wish was that when they emerge I would be able to film them as they emerge from the chrysalis stage as adult dragonflies. All was set for this to happen, the emerged as nymphs an while I missed that stage I have visited everyday so that when it happened I could film them. However on Wednesday I had to go with some other people to visit another rich wildlife site to offer some aid and advice. So I was not able to go to the pool on Wednesday or on Thursday as I was away. On Friday, my investigations just showed the empty chrysalis case, the ghost skin of the dragonflies. They had emerged while I was away. So unless I can find more this year it will be next year before I can get that film.

However the trip away was more than worthwhile. The Ministry of Defence here in Britain has several sites where for safety reasons the public are not normally allowed. This means that the natural history on these sites flourishes free from disturbance by most human activity. Further, the military people who manage this land are very sensitive to the needs of the wildlife most of the time too.

Therefore, being allowed to carry out a limited survey in one of these areas is a privilege.

However, the main work that needed to be done was catching rabbits. For reasons that will become obvious, the army, following advice, had built what was effectively an artificial burrow sites for the rabbits and our job was to live catch the rabbits so they could be moved to this site. It was all done by a very traditional method of using purse nets and feeding a ferret down the burrow system, the rabbits exit the burrow and into the purse nets. Our role was much more that of wildlife specialists with the job of finding all the entrances. Or exits as they become, as if you fail to net even one hole that's where the rabbits will emerge.

It took the two days, but we must have caught ninety percent of the rabbits and moved them to their new home. They now have three acres of fenced in land to happily live and breed on. Now the reason for this is simply that there is a bird of prey that has been nesting near the site. The problem was that during exercise it was flying in to take the rabbits and endangering its life. So a novel solution was devised to create an alternative nest site, this it used this year and the pair raised two chicks. But they persisted in hunting within this danger zone. So to protect this rare bird decision was taken to move the food to a safer place. This had worked reasonably well with work done in the past and this work I was involved in was the finish of that.

The work was one of the most unusual things I have done, but it gave me a chance to see a bird I have never seen before, a Golden Eagle.

Had I been allowed to take or use a camera on the site, I could have had some wonderful film, but while that was not possible, I at least will have the memory of seeing this magnificent bird.

Looking for Otters and Oystercatcher film

Today has been a cold and uncomfortable day for me. While out shopping last week, I got into conversation with a chap who told me that near his home, every morning, he saw the Otters that live on the river, more specifically a female and pup. So I took him up on the offer of him showing me the location.

As promised, the potential viewing point would be perfect, and the signs looked as though the Otters were indeed using the spot very regularly. Therefore I set up the camera and started what turned out to be a long wait. My position, laying on my belly meant that I presented no silhouette and with the wind more or less in my face, I was expectant.

As expected the ground was damp and as showers are a feature of April, I soon became saturated. I waited, but not a sign of the Otters did I see. Once it was two hours past the latest time that the Otters had ever been seen, I decided to withdraw. As I emerged from my vantage point, I realised that my guide had been standing there most of the time and in full view of any wildlife. He told me that he couldn't understand it as the otters had been there every day, until the weekend. It was then that he reviled that he had taken a large party down to the river, and while they had seen them briefly they had not stayed.

I explained that it was likely that he and his friends had probably frightened them off. While disappointing, at least I know where the otters have been recently and I may see them at a latter time.

Well, while that was disappointing I did get something done today. I opened an account on U Tube and I posted one of my videos on there. But so as my loyal reader here doesn't miss out here it is for your delectation.