There had been little here, except on the hill tops until today when, just as we were heading out to Monzievaird a fair bit came down. We went out anyway and Monzievaird was a changed landscape. The loch was mostly frozen, just a small patch of open water where amongst 70 or so Mallard, 17 Little Grebes, 4 Moorhen, 2 Canada Geese and 4 Mute Swans were a pair of (new for me at this site) Gadwall. A Carrion Crow was tearing at some dead and dismembered thing in the middle of the ice. Being somewhat concerned about how good the roads would be to get home, we didn't linger long.
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| Photos from around Loch Monzievaird. |
Overnight and during the morning I'd been trying my new camera trap. I've been using a Browning trap over the last few years and whilst I have got some decent results and it has found some interesting things, principally Water Rail and Jack Snipe in Orkney, it is a frustrating thing to use. One main problem is setting the trap in the dark, which is almost impossible because the screen is located on the front of the camera requiring a certain amount of contortion and trial and error to get it to focus on the correct area. The tripod mount has broken, which makes positioning it a pain as well. I had bought a solar panel to try to reduce battery use, but in the winter and at night it tended to be unreliable. Probably its worst feature from my point of view was the lack of decent close focus necessitating taping a close up lens to the front of it if I wanted to get images of small mammals. Browsing the Nature Spy site the other day I saw they had an interesting new camera available, and at not an extortionate price.
The Helarctos Solar trap has a wide angle lens, that focuses much closer. It also connects to my mobile phone so it is not hard to position much more accurately, even at night. I've also found that it fits really well on the Z tripod fitting I have, and used with this, and no tripod, it will sit on the ground in a stable position, ideal for small mammals and for small birds. I've put some of my first efforts below. One position is a little too ambitious with the close focus, I should have put it a few cms further back, but otherwise the video output is pretty good. Photos are passable, but that's not how I tend to use a camera trap, although it will take one still image with a video.
How many bird species can you see?
Wood Mouse
Bank Vole at night.
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| Robin |
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| Bank Vole, the camera a fraction too close I think. |
The Brambling is only the fourth or so in the garden, the third this autumn/winter. And the leucistic Chaffinch is the third, I didn't get images of the previous two. Today, out in The Ross there was a smart male Stonechat which is only the third record for the patch I think.
I'm currently writing up various things from 2025, and earlier; and trying to get all my records in to iRecord. The Community Woodland species total is also being worked on, currently 461 with a few mammals, reptiles and amphibians known about, but I have no dates, yet.
I attended a Biological Recording Company beginners' session on bryophytes earlier this week. I'm keen to improve my skills,and although I knew most of what was presented it was still worth attending. A new bryophyte book should be turning up shortly and I now better understand the morphology of these plants.
3 comments:
Interesting! Thank you for the real-world product review. Are you able to control any functions via your phone e.g. focus? Today is the first day we have seen lawn this year, the snow is just starting to melt. I've been off work with a bad back, so used the time to belatedly launch into the PSL website, although my lack of long term note taking is a bit of an issue.
Graeme, you can't control focus, however, I think you can control any of the settings that you can control from the camera. I think this is a pretty good trail cam. It seems well made. The only part that seems a bit flimsy are the locking clips, to close the camera up. It does come with a 2 year guarantee though. The connection set up was easy and it connects within about 90 seconds on each occasion (so far). Battery life is good.
Hope the back improves! I didn't have notes for a lot of my early stuff, Coypu for example! But if you are certain you've seen it, tick. Beware of taxonomic complications though. I've just scrubbed Andricus kollari (Marble Gall of oak) as it cannot be determined from A. infectorius at the gall stage. I believe you now have to rear this through and identify the adult. I probably saw this before 2018, when A. infectorius was found in the UK but I can't remember. There are quite a lot of plants I'm unsure about, so I'm going to have to see them now (again, perhaps). Then there are things like Fragrant Orchid which have been split into three.
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