Gatwick trail cams 2022

A four-minute compilation of trail camera footage from Gatwick's biodiversity sites during 2022. 

Works best with the sound on...

Mink raft cam - Part 1

This Mink raft has been sitting at the back of our storage shed for years (I got bored with it as it never seemed to turn up any signs in the tracking pad). After recently seeing trail camera footage online of the another raft, it showed a range of riverside species taking quite an interest. I thought I'd give it another try, leaving it anchored to the bank for now rather than floating.

Testing.... still can never tell whether it is on.

A curious European Robin (Erithacus rubecula)

This rather annoying Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) became obsessed, filling up most of the memory card. It had a good chew on the raft corners.

Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) - one of my favourite waterside birds; also a red-listed species

Eurasian Jays (Garrulus glandarius) always seem interested by the advanced technology. 

You can hear the Grey Wagtail calling in the background

An indecisive Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), or might be a small Yellow-necked Mouse

The weather takes a turn for the worse. Meanwhile I'm away in London, completely oblivious to the storm...

Uh oh, really should have brought the camera in on the Friday!

Phew, got away with it this time - the water has receded quite a bit.

Now something WAS just on the right hand corner of the raft in that final clip; you can hear as it splashes into the water. What could it have been, a Mallard? Moorhen? A mystery wetland mammal?!

I'll put this camera out again when the weather improves, although perhaps aim for a wider angle (and safer height).

Woodland fence trail camera - part 2

(A continuation from a previous blogpost on monitoring of the fenceline apertures and movements of wildlife.)

An old broken fenceline has proved an important passing point for a variety of mammals, including Badger, Fox, Rabbit and Grey Squirrel. We left trail cameras in two locations to see how often the gaps at the bottom of the fence were being used.

Badger (Meles meles)

 Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

 

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) with prey, perhaps a Jackdaw

A fox nibbling a slug. Later on it returned to eat the whole thing!

Pair of Red Fox

Where the new section of fence has been installed, apertures purposely created for wildlife are now being regularly used by Foxes and Badgers. Not all of the footage came out so well, but we did get a few niceties...

Pair of Badgers

A dog Fox shows his approval

Here's a final clip of a young Roe Deer. They grow up so fast!

Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) kid and doe

A comparison between the two sites over 7 days of monitoring:

Site 1 (old fence)
Red Fox = 8 passes
Badger = 2 passes

Site 2 (new fence with man-made aperture)
Red Fox = 7 passes
Badger = 5 passes
Grey Squirrel = 2 passes

Many thanks to ecology volunteers Tasmin and Anna, for helping set up the cameras and for sorting through the footage.
Previous blogpost here: https://biodiversitygatwick.blogspot.com/2019/06/woodland-fence-trail-camera.html

Woodland fence trail camera

Back in May I left a trail camera in the woodland where a new fence line had been recently installed. Part of the work included leaving apertures in the fence wide enough for foxes, badgers and other mammals to pass through. This can result in wildlife being funneled through to certain spots, making it a very useful place to put a trail camera.

Below are a selection of clips and the final result is at the end of the post.

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

A male Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) notices the camera for the first time

Second male Roe Deer (slightly different tines on his antlers)

Once the wildlife gets used to the presence of the camera, more natural behaviour starts to come out...

Fox carrying food

Male Roe Deer chasing each other

This particular Fox looks like he might be a new visitor, as he is nervous of the gap in the fence.

Lovely to see a family group of Roe Deer; the young (called kids) will only have been born sometime in the past couple of weeks.

It looks as if this female Roe Deer might be being courted by the male. The strange breathing sound is his communicating. A lot more creepy than attractive in my opinion.

The male Roe Deer were chasing each other up and down the fence several times per day, and this lone female on the other side was obviously interested...

An hour later, and she solved the problem.

Total number of movements through the aperture over the 6 days (likely an underestimate as not every movement may have been recorded):

• Fox = 14
• Rabbit = 1
• Roe Deer = 1

Base-of-the-Tree cam

With the help of our regular ecology volunteers Luke, Jason and Connor, I've been maintaining a trail camera network around the biodiversity areas. There's a favourite old English Oak near the Gatwick Stream with an old burrow at its base. Maybe not as tense as an episode of Game of Thrones, but a lot goes on at this remote spot.
(The clips work better with your speakers on.)

Wood Mouse spooked by Tawny Owl calling

Male Roe Deer

 Indecisive Rabbit and Great Spotted Woodpecker calling

Female Roe Deer eating something alarmingly crunchy

Female Roe again, sniffing camera. Distant Tawny calling and Herring Gulls

Nervous Rabbits and a car alarm sounding closer than it is

 Male Roe Deer breaking the third wall

Jay and Magpie, partners in crime

Wood Mouse acrobatics

(Camera is Ltl Acorn 5210a supplied by NatureSpy)

Weathering June

There were soggy June days….

Handy woodland foot bridges built by Tom S and his volunteers 

And scorching June days...

River Mole grasslands, North West Zone

But most were great days on the project! Here is my round up of the June happenings:

We kick-started The Wildlife Trust's '30 Days Wild' with a series of wildlife events for Gatwick staff and local residents. Uptake was much better this year, and it is incredibly gratifying to see people engaging with a range of wildlife walks, talks and activities such as forest schools.

Riverside Garden Park pollinator walk

Azure Damselfly (using a clip-on macro lens for my camera phone)

The Long-horned Bees have received further executive visitors in the form of Sussex University Profs. Francis Ratnieks and Dave Goulson, with their PhD student Gigi. 

Part of Gigi's project will be focusing on our LHB colonies, which is really exciting as few detailed studies have been carried out for this species. Her mark-recapture work (which doesn't harm the bees), could reveal insights into how many bees there are in each colony, which plants they like best, how the overall population is faring etc.

A queen-marking cage used for Honey Bees also work very well to temporarily hold this female Long-Horned still

Into the woods; this summer I'm spending most of my time carrying out repeated baseline habitat condition surveys, which takes me back to 2012 and my first summer in ecology. Those early days were incredibly challenging, but then formative times mostly are!

Woodland habitat survey of Upper Picketts Wood, Land East

Looking back over my data, it seems I did alright with my botanical species identification... In fact, past-Rachel had indeed correctly identified Field Forget-me-not, so present-day Rachel has to amend a recent record. You win this round past-Rachel. (Took you over 4 years to find a Purple Emperor butterfly though didn't it?)

  .

Ecologists Rina and Lucy with Royal Holloway Uni placement students Kajayini and Roxanne

While I was going a bit weird out in the woods, we had some extra help out on the sites for our annual ecological monitoring.  

Adult Grass Snake just prior to shedding (Photo by Anna-Marie Lawn)

Late summer breeding bird surveys with Tom F : Two new species to the survey were Eurasian Hobby and a daytime calling Tawny Owl

Our Dormouse surveys haven't turned up any of the critters so far this year, but we did accidentally disturb this hornet's nest, which we felt bad about, but was pretty cool to see...

On the hottest day of the year, I happened to be up in London, as Gatwick Airport Ltd received several awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). My project work comes under Gatwick's central Environment, Health and Safety Team, who are an incredibly diligent and hard working bunch; my hat is off to this team and they really deserve the recognition. Despite near heat-death on the tube (next time it's hiking boots), it was good fun hanging out near the Royal Victoria Docks.

A smoggy haze is the downside to a hot day in the city

Gatwick was this year's headline sponsor for The Big Bang Fair at the South of England Showground. The festival celebrates science, technology and engineering careers, with students attending from schools all over South East England.

Kevin Lerwill from Gatwick Greenspace. 

 It was pretty intense and we engaged over 100 students with our biodiversity stand, which included water quality assessment through pond dipping for invertebrates. 

Tom Errett from Gatwick's central EHS Team

Demonstration of bat sonograms and surveying technology by bat ecologist Martyn Cooke

Back over to our sites, and our invasive species management is well underway, with teams of Gatwick staff assisting Tom S with tackling Himalayan Balsam along the River Mole. 

Goat's Rue is another invasive plant starting to spread here, so we are doing our best to dig it up cleanly from the roots. I don't know much about Goat's Rue management as their doesn't seem to be much online literature, so any further advice appreciated!

Our Gatwick Honey Bees (Apis melifera) had a challenging season with the extreme June weather, and decided they didn't feel like swarming this year. We have 6 colonies and a few of our queens have now superseded, so they should be looking stronger for mid-summer.

(Put your speakers on/ headphones in for these...)

Our trail cameras are picking up some lovely footage (thanks to volunteers Luke and Jason for maintaining these); now the next step is to comb through it all and enter details into irecord! 

The fluffy coat on this poor old fox must be seriously hindering him on the hottest day of the year...

I love Grey Wagtails, so am hoping this one has been breeding nearby...

However, our best day of June was The Day The Container Arrived (which sounds like a really dull dystopian sci-fi novel.)

This is exciting for us, as we've been planning for a field base for the past few years, and have hit a few challenges and hurdles along the way. It has been worth the wait though!

Tom S now has a new base for volunteer activities and forest schools

So I feel that I have shown admirable restraint the last few days, only very gradually sneaking the entire contents of my car inside...

Blimey, did you make it to the end of all this? That is some staying power, well done you!

Gatwick Trail Camera: Scavenger Cam Jan 2017

I staked a pheasant carcass to the ground in a quiet part of Goat Meadow, then set up a trail camera to see who would come a'scavenging...

Day 1: European Robin

Day 2. Yep, it's definitely dead guys.

Evening 2. Eyes in the dark... a female Roe Deer

Evening 4: Red Fox

Day 5: Roe Deer (female)

Day 5: Carrion Crow

Evening 5: Red Fox

Cast (in order of appearance):
Robin
Human
Roe Deer 1
Red Fox 1
Roe Deer 2
Carrion Crow
Red Fox 2 (or maybe 1?)