A week on the trailcam

12 to 21 Aug 2020

This new spot for the trailcam is proving to be quite interesting. Despite being just a few metres from the house and close to the feeders it’s just out of view, and it’s surprising how much wanders by that I normally miss.

Quite a lot of scraggily looking birds. I’m not sure if they’re in moult, or juvinile birds, or both. There’s also quite a lot of the greater spotted woodpecker drinking, both adult and juvenile. I think it’s the same juvenile each time. It has quite a distinctive red dot on the right-hand-side of the nape of its neck, but it’s not always easy to see, and I suspect there may be more than one juvenile around.

Hedgehogs and mice appear in the dead of night.

The water is a huge hit. Birds that I don’t often associate with drinking from the ground level seem quite content to spend a bit of time there. Chaffinches, robins, blue tits, lots of long-tailed tits, and I’m pretty sure there’s a treecreeper that makes a brief appearance. The water depth may be a little too uncertain for them but a few of the bigger birds certainly have a dip. The greater-spotted woodpecker having a good bath at 13:10 is, I’m fairly certain, not the same juvenile that appears earlier.

There’s often a bit of background action too on the feeders, mostly Jackdaws and woodpeckers.

Find Willow’s Collar

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday I was wondering on whether it’s possible to set up a dumb ‘slave’ iPhone to act as a part of the hive mind and pass on location info about our cats. Today Willow has wandered in, sans collar, and that means no tile either. I haven’t lost my cat, but I have lost his collar.

I’ve marked Willow’s Collar as Lost. I’ve wandered round the garden and the street staring at my iPhone at the slowly rotating grey circle. Nothing yet.

Let the games begin …