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

Environmentally friendly

Last week, Gatwick's Environment, Health and Safety team got their (gloved) hands dirty, helping us put up 50 new dormouse boxes.

We were working within fragments of ancient woodland, over in the Land East of the Railway Line. Despite having previously detected signs of Dormice here, we are yet to find that definitive evidence of one curled up sleepily in a box.

A sludgy woodland trek

The team did an excellent job of getting the boxes up onto trees, seemingly enjoying themselves despite the now habitual rain and rivulets of mud. The boxes were put up in rows of consecutive numbers (no thanks to my lacking mathematics, leading to much confusion and switching boxes about...) which will make surveying all the easier in the seasons to come.

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Tom S. of Gatwick Greenspace, 'papping' the team

So about an hour later than it should have been, we finally stopped for a well deserved tea and biscuit break. Before leaving the site, while looking around for signs of mammal tracks, I spotted this entire badger skull...

Badger skull found in Lower Picketts Wood. 

I like how the sagittal crest has a funky green mossy toupée

Badger skulls are pretty solid things, with the skull plate sutures well-fused and the bottom jaw often still connected to the base. They also have a large ridge towards the back called a sagittal crest, to which the strong jaw muscles would be attached. 

After a good clean up, the crest is slightly more obvious. It seems fairly small and I thought this might indicate it was a young badger. However, the teeth are also rather worn and an upper-rear molar looks badly infected (this now being the least of its problems.) There also seemed to be signs of recent badger activity very close by; some further investigation could be required by Gatwick Greenspace Partnership's Youth and Wildlife Rangers!

Tom's new friend, named in the honour of Environmental Secretary Owen Paterson

(O-Patz for short)

After lunch, it was back into the woodlands for some glade creation - we coppiced an area of the unmanaged hazel understory and several birch trees. All of the wood is kept on site, stacked into neat-ish habitat piles, maximising the space on the ground for woodland flora.

Of all the team, I'm not sure that Frank takes Environment, Health and Safety the most seriously.

Hand saws and tree loppers, along with grit and determination means we can achieve a lot in a short amount of time; we are now starting to feel on top of our winter habitat management targets. Around the place are signs that spring is just around the corner, meaning that time to complete last year's data entry is also running out...

Tops of bluebells

Wild daffodils

The 'dormouse boxing' team

A massive thank you again to all who came out to help and to Karen for organising. We hope to see you lot again on a drier day in summer!