I've been putting camera traps out again at the community woodland. The main purpose is to monitor mammals on the site, however, quite a few birds have been recorded. Camera trapping is very much a trial and error activity. I've long suspected that the several large Blackthorn clumps at the community woodland are important for mammals and the camera trapping I carried out last year indicated that this was so.
Once the spot has been decided upon setting the camera up is the next task, especially making sure that there is no vegetation that will blow in the wind and set it off. The other issue is how to set the trap. I'm currently setting my Naturespy traps to go straight to movie, but there is a 5 second delay from the trigger before they fire. I'm going to change this so they take a still image first, which will be instant (I think) and then fire the video. So the following clips miss the animal entering the frame, and I have some frustratingly brief clips of things, although I have managed to identify nearly everything.
Pine Marten
Red Squirrel
Stoat
Not much to see of the Stoat.
The following clips are a bit better. This Blackbird caused some questioning around its identity, but Blackbird it is.
This is my favourite clip from the session.
Woodcock and Robin
The Woodcock clip is excellent, especially as you can hear it calling softly as it walks off behind the camera.
Redwing
The light traps have been out in the garden a couple of times and I've made a bit of a start tackling the vane trap captures from the summer.
Some interesting tiny beetles with few Scottish records have come from the vane traps.
Gendet of Cryptophagus dentatus, essential to prove ID, but not the easiest dissection
Cryptophagus dentatus, 2.5mm and required gendet to ID. Just seven accepted Scottish records.
All in all this identification probably took me five hours.
I've also identified Omalium excavatum, 22 Scottish records with just 12 accepted; Enicmus testaceus, four Scottish records with just one accepted; Epuraea melanocephala, 11 Scottish records with just two accepted, one of which is mine from Orkney oddly. These all took quite a while, but all proved the value of owning the four volumes of Duff over how I used to tackle these tiny beasts using just online resources. There were also a lot of failures, mostly with Aleocharinae which even with Duff are, as one well known coleopterist once stated, like trying to climb Everest but only being able to ascend the foothills. Personally, I'm still sitting in Kathmandu with a ginger tea and a cake.
An Aleocharinae, so far unidentified despite its fairly distinctive looks.
A puzzle for a lot of moth folk at this time of year are the Epirrita species; Autumnal Moth, Pale November Moth and November Moth. There are all sorts of suggestions online about how these may be identified from the fore wing, most of which make little sense to me. I know all three species occur in our garden as I've dissected them in the past. However, I tried a wee experiment the other day and at least Epirrita diluta November Moth may sometimes be proven without killing it. Put the suspect in a clear plastic/glass pot and photograph the underside of the abdomen.
Epirrita diluta, a worn specimen so the octavals can be clearly seen, long and widely spaced. For reference look here - https://britishlepidoptera.weebly.com/107-epirrita-dilutata-november-moth.html and click "Male genitalia", then look at the other two species on the same site.
I think this will only work on quite worn moths though, not fresh ones. This one flew away unscathed.
Lastly, here's what the storm did to the community woodland. The strong winds coming when the trees still have leaves caused a bit of mayhem.
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