Garden trail cam - Badger and Fox

A wet night and I did not expect to see much on the trail cam in my garden as inclement weather tends to wet or steam the lens. The images are screen grabs from video clips.

So I was really pleased and surprised to capture this badger on the garden path. The rain probably brought some nice tasty worms to the surface. 

Not the first time I have seen badger in our garden, but its a rare visitor

Fox are regular visitors, this looks like one of this years juveniles.

Fox and Pipistelle Bat

Just before 9.00am I noticed a fox hunting in the track. It traveled nose to the ground crossing the track and looking in the vegetation, slowly making its way towards our house. I quickly went inside to get my camera.

I knew the flash would probably cause the fox to head back up teh track so I waited until it was near enough to take a photo. 

The flash caused the fox to freeze and it looked in my direction, but not sure if it could see me as I kept myself in front of our brick wall. It turned slowly and trotted back up the track.

Foxes were quite common around our way and in previous years I have watched a couple of foxes on their nightly rounds, but I have not seen them for a couple of years, so great to see this fox.

Just after the fox had gone, I noticed the pipistrelle bats were also now on the wing. Again, I have been watching these bats hunting along the track for the last few years. There are lots of insects in the track and the bats may hunt for a 20 minutes or more before moving on. I watched them for a while then went inside.  

A short while later I went back out to check and as I suspected, the fox was back hunting again. I knew that my presence would only cause it to go away temporarily

More bats and fox

I went out to check on the bats and keep an eye out for the fox. The bat did its usual route, flying low over me as before. This time I only saw the bat a couple of times.

I noticed the fox down the alley, criss-crossing from one garden to another. However a chap walked up the track from my end and the fox disappeared. I watched for about 10 minutes and no sign of the fox. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the fox slinking past up the far side of the track. It must have been disturbed by the chap walking up the track and the fox must have crossed through a garden to the road and was now doing a reverse walk up the track from my end

Watching me watching you.

9.30pm and I went out to watch for the bats and fox. Sure enough, the bats were on the wing, again flying a couple of feet above my head as they turned round to fly back up the alley.

Suddenly a dark shape came out of the gloom. It was the fox. As the fox came to the end of the alley it looked out to the road.

It was almost parallel with me now when it noticed me standing behind the wall. It stared at me for about a minute and then sat down and we watched each other across the track.

We watched each other for several minutes before the fox got up and walked back up the track a short way and then sat down on a clump of grass in the middle of the track.

It seemed to think I could not see it. After a couple of minutes the fox crossed to the nearside of the track, past the garages and the other side of the wall where I stood back a short way.

I resisted the temptation to lean over the wall until it had gone past and I photographed it as it past our car.

More Fox

9.50 came and I realised I had not checked on the bats. I decided to check out of our bed room window, as the small side window looks straight up the track.

As I pulled back the curtains I came face to face with the fox. Crouched on our flint wall, about 3 feet away the fox stared at me for about 10 seconds before causally turning around and walking back along the flint wall to the back of the house. His large bushy tail being the last I saw of him. A beautiful creature.

Bats and foxes

Friday evening, 9.30pm and the bat was hunting in the track, again flying as far as our house and turning around and then flying past the house, only to return a few minutes later.

Bat marked by arrow (above) close up (below)

I went out again tonight to watch and sure enough the bat turned up. This time however, I saw 2 flying together. I suspected there might be more than one and this time I had the proff.

The previous days I had watched the bats until about 9.45pm when the activity appeared to stop. I decided to stay out a bit longer to see if they come back.

After about 10 minutes a bat flew back down the track. I watched it fly too and fro for a while.

I had also noticed a shape of a fox further down the track. It was using the track to travel in and out of selected back gardens. Unfortunately when it reached my end of the track, a group of teenagers went past noisily.

Disturbed it turned round and trotted back up the track and disappeared into the darkness

Another fox

While locking the door for the night I saw a shape appear at the gateway at the end of the path. It was distorted through our front door and at first I thought it was a cat. I looked closer and saw it was a small fox. I think the fox was about to come up our path but saw my silhouette and changed its mind.

Instead it trotted over to the small patch of green across the track before heading off up the road.

More snow!!

Yesterday afternoon and through the night we had a few centimetres of sleety snow. Later this morning it snowed properly covereing the sleet with a blanket of real snow that built up during the day

Our cat is beginning to get used to snow, having now experienced it on three occasions. She still trys to keep to areas that have no snow as much as possible.

Our daughter's school wa sclosed be cause of the snow so she got to make a snow man with a school friend. Note the pancies in the foreground.

That evening while talking to a friend on the telephone, while looking out the window, a large beautiful fox trotted up the road. By the time I managed to grab my camera it was gone.