Category Archives: Kingswood

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap VII

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It has been several weeks since the last Secret Life of The Compost Heap post video. There has been a lack of subjects. I moved the camera to a new location for a week and recorded nothing but rabbits. Back at the compost heap, and the odd fox and badger. It was cold, so maybe they were keeping out of the cold, snuggled down somewhere.

After filming a few scenes of the rabbit hole, I repositioned the camera to look to the left of the rabbit hole where there is a wildlife path. Sure enough, badgers and foxes passed by. The foxes walking by and investigating the second entrance to the rabbit burrow. The foxes are rather camera-shy and can see the Infra-Red light. You can see one small fox being very hesitant. Alas, the Polecat has not been seen again. One domestic cat comes by regularly.

During the day one of our pheasants came by walking towards the bird feeders. You can see him run back a little later. Somebody must have opened the doorway to the house and scared him.

There is a short scene with a little field mouse. Cute.

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap VI

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The Secret Life of the Compost Heap VI

The disappearing Polecat (Mustela putorius), hungry fox (Vulpes vulpes), Badger (Meles meles), Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), Field Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus)

Where has our polecat (Mustela putorius) gone? We have not seen it for over a week. For several days it came out and played, and now he has gone. I start this video with a short recap of last week’s video. There is the polecat rolling on the ground, he spots the fox and then with fear backs into the hole. You see the fox smelling the ground around where the polecat had rolled. Mr Fox then leaves, coming back at 7.55 in the morning and going straight underground. The new video images start, and you see Mr Fox rush out at 13.47.

We never saw the polecat again; we fear Mr Fox has had a polecat breakfast.

During the rest of the week, Mr Fox and Brock the Badger made appearances, including a very wet Badger during the overnight rain.

A beautiful (??) cat paid the compost heap a fleeting visit. We have seen her before, we don’t know which Humes she owns.

I moved the camera to the other hole last night, not much other than rabbits, and a cute mouse. I removed the card just as the snow had started, and there is an image of a rabbit in the snowfall.

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap III

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The same Compost Heap, different rabbit hole. Tonight we were visited by the cute Polecat, a member of the Mustelid family. The Polecat rolled around the ground where a rabbit had been digging. Was it trying to disguise its scent? The previous night was a mystery, the camera failed to operate for some reason.

We have recently been wondering where all the rabbits had gone. Over Summer the grassland around our house had been inundated with rabbits. Since the autumn the number of rabbits has reduced. Even Garden Bunny who I reported on in October has vanished. A tasty morsel for the Polecat, or Mr Fox?

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap II

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Another night and the same compost heap, but a different set of starring animals. The Rabbits and Mouse appeared and hogged the camera. They made a hasty getaway when the starring animals appeared, a Fox and a Polecat. The Polecat appeared out of the rabbit hole, and later at the end can be seen rushing back in. The Fox stood and looked at the camera. The later images are poor because of a light frost covering on the lens.

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap

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Fox and Badger in the Compost Heap

Rosemary has her Christmas present, which I am making good use of. It is a Bushnell Trail Cam, designed to scout out your land for wildlife. (I believe the intention of the American manufacturer is you see what there is, and then using one of their rifles, shoot it.)

The camera can take video and still pictures. At night in black and white, and during the day in colour. There is a motion detector which activates the device when a warm body enters the scene. This picks up birds, mice and larger mammals. Unfortunately, there is no filter to remove the numerous images and videos of rabbits.

My first test was a disaster, mounted the camera too high, looking down the garden. All it picked up was me when I was setting it, testing it and coming back to retrieve it. Our next test on Sunday night was by the compost heap during Storm Bella. Here we picked up some rabbits, and a badger investigating the rabbit hole. The following day, it picked up some birds during the day, and the badger during the night (and rabbits). The badger did seem interested in the camera, I can only think it could see the low glow LED lights. Last night I took still images and not video, this time a fox visited. No badger to be seen.

So far:

  • Numerous rabbits
  • Badger
  • Fox
  • Rodent (Rosemary hopes not a rat)
  • Chaffinch
  • Blackbird
  • Thrush

Should I follow in the footsteps of Noah?

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Garden Bunny
The most fearless wild rabbit I have ever come across!

The last few days have seen rain, and more rain. The field was totally flooded. The field pond went from empty to full in the course of a couple of days. The leaking garden pond is almost full. Not seen such high levels for years. This rain has added to a water main leaking outside one of our neighbours since at least March. I did wonder why one of our field gateways had been damp during the summer. The water apparently flowed to her ménage, which is well drained, and then through the ménage land-drains to the gateway. Thankfully Thames Water have at last fixed the leak. This though is worthy of its own story.

The rain has again attracted the Little Egret, and flocks of gulls, who suddenly descend on the field as if it were the seashore. If I wanted a house by the sea I would not have bought a house which is probably as far away from the coast as you can get in the UK. Not only do we have these coastal birds visiting us, we now have Garden Bunny. Such a fearless animal sitting eating our grass for most of the day, totally ignoring us as we walk around the house & garden, and the tractor which came into the garden to cut the hedges. One worry is that Rosemary saw some baby bunnies the other day.

Another one bites the dust

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Kestrel

This Kestrel has been spotted 9 times feeding from our feeder. How many more birds it has taken without us seeing is anyone’s guess. It is so pretty, but so our are finches and blue tits! Nature is arguably cruel, and I suppose they have to feed, as we similarily eat those pretty lambs I took pictures of at the beginning of lockdown. Shame I can’t quite read the number on his ring.

Little Egret

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The recent torrential rain has ended summer and attracted a Little Egret. The Little Egret could be seen wading around the field pulling up worms for breakfast. The Little Egret was large, so we thought we were lucky and had a Great Egret. Alas, beak, legs and feet show it to be a Little Egret, a far more common variety.

Wildlife

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Garden Life

Life can be tough. This year we have seen masses of Goldfinch, at the same time there have been Magpies, Sparrowhawks and Kestrels, all feeding on the smaller birds. Most days there are piles of feathers around the garden and field where some bird has met its maker. While this Kestrel was feeding, the Goldfinch were still at their Niger seed.

Comet NEOWISE

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Cloudless evening on Monday so I attempted to photograph NEOWISE. The problem I had was with my knowledge of the camera. I didn’t know where infinity was on the lens scale. Should it be hard up against the stop, on the infinity mark or some other position? Does it change with different zoom? During daylight this morning I discovered it was significantly different, more on the 300-meter distance, and does change with focal lengths. It is difficult to focus through the viewfinder when there is just black. No help from the moon to act as a focusing aid, because it was a new moon. So alas my pictures could be sharper. Possibly I should have tried focusing on the planets of Jupiter and Saturn which were very bright, close together and towards the South East.

The first photograph, where you can see the trees, was taken on my mobile phone. With a little imagination, you can see the comet trail point directly upwards. The second photograph was taken with the DSLR, zoomed and cropped to the comet.

The tail of the comet was just visible with the naked eye, but only if you knew where to look and had spotted it with binoculars. I was looking after 11 pm. Any earlier and the sky was too bright, leave it later and I believe the comet was nearer the horizon. When we saw the comet, it was towards the North West, halfway between the horizon and star called Dubhe in The Plough constellation. Dubhe is one of two pointer stars used to locate Polaris.

R and I had made a previous attempt by getting up at 3.30 in the morning, alas it was cloudy on the horizon, we looked in the wrong direction, and it was getting very bright at that time of the morning. Excellent view of Venus, it is now viewable in the morning.