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