Day 341 - Woodland Wildlife

hopeful

This evening, without much hope, we went up to the woods in the dark to collect the trailcam that we'd left up there last Saturday morning.

We'd set it up in a bit of a rush, as we had two birthday bashes to attend that same day, at what felt like opposite ends of the country.

The photo above shows the camera strapped to the trunk of a tree, and the photo below shows the approximate view that the camera was observing.

bonus spongebob

One of the challenges with the trailcam is that you can't really tell what view it has - you just have to point it in the right approximate level and hope for the best...and given that tree trunks are generally not uniformly straight and vertical, it can be quite tricky.

Also, we weren't sure we'd picked a great spot, but still, we hoped for a little passing activity.

Upon arriving back home with the camera this evening, we were excited to find 84 one minute videos!  

They were all taken between Saturday morning and Wednesday lunchtime, when the 8GB memory card filled up.

On viewing them, we discovered a range of interesting activity, and learned something surprising!

Between Saturday and Monday morning, a variety of animals passed by...

V9 at least

By day, squirrels were busy with some impressive roof climbing...and the occasional pheasant wandered by...

learn to phly

Whilst at dusk, rabbits were most active...

whu-whu-whu-what's up?

And badgers were about through the night...

badger blur

Then, on Monday morning, this happened...

intruder

And that was it.  For the next three days, we got dozens of clips of sheep wandering down the field...or hanging about...before wandering back down the field again. 

Back and forth they went, presumably on some sort of cycle...

(And I don't mean on a bike - that would be ridiculous!   With cloven hooves it would be very tricky to ring the bell to warn others of your passage through the herd...).

Anyway, the surprising thing was that as soon as the sheep arrived, everything else disappeared. 

Even though all the animals had so far been in the woods, and the sheep were the other side of a fence, in the field, there was nary a sign of anything further. 

It's interesting to note that the variety of more natural species all seemed to get along happily, or at least, in balance...but the sheep, whose presence is as unnatural as is our own, have the same intrusive effect that we humans have.

We don't fit in, we just push everything else out.

Humans and sheep...and I suppose, cows...

Lot to answer for...

:-/

PS bonus video below...