Blog by Mark Hancock who is a Senior Conservation Scientist with the RSPB
In the long summer days at Forsinard, where the cuckoo starts calling at 3 am, driving everyone mad, such a lot of wildlife activity happens when us humans are not out in the field. This year we've been trying to keep more of a 24-hour eye on the wildlife of the lochs, using trail cameras: special automatic cameras that are triggered by movements nearby.
In previous years, we used trail cameras as part of our studies of the breeding scoters. Scoters are large diving ducks, better known to bird-watchers from their wintering habitats at sea. No less than half the UK breeding population of scoters occurs on the lochs and pools in and around Forsinard. In our previous studies, the cameras were good at recording mammalian predators at scoter lochs - including pine martens, which have moved into the area following the planting of large areas of conifers in the 1980s. Surprisingly, the cameras are also good at recording ducks and other birds that swim or wade past the bit of shoreline they are looking at. So this year, we've set them up to also help fill out the picture on birds of the loch shores and shallow waters.
Unlike us human observers, the camera never rests, patiently watching a bit of shoreline, 24 hours a day. In our current research at scoter lochs, we're not just interested in mammalian predators, but also in the balance between birds that feed on fish, and birds that feed on invertebrates. Our earlier studies suggested that scoters and trout might compete for food: lochs with few trout, tended to have more large-bodied invertebrates (like large mayflies, caddisflies and beetles), and these lochs tended to be preferred by scoters. Paradoxically, these lochs also held larger trout - probably because the trout themselves also found more food in the them, and grew faster.
So, how are these cameras getting on? Well, at one loch, the camera proved to be very good at taking 100s of photographs of sunny dawns, when the sun shines right into the camera, glinting off the water, at 4am. Very pretty but not really what we're after. But we've also had some nice wildlife shots...take a look.
A feeding greenshank walks past the camera one Sunday evening. The greenshank is an invertebrate feeder by and large, and a classic bird of the "Flow Country": the huge blanket bog within which RSPB Forsinard lies.
A pair of greylag geese stop by for a preen, quarter to 11 at night. Increasing numbers of breeding geese at Forsinard - with their vigilance and noisy calls - might help all nesting birds by raising the alarm when predators like foxes are hunting nearby.
A still evening, around nine-thirty, and a heron is still hunting for fish, its eye glinting as the camera's infra-red flash fires in the half-light. Must straighten this camera up, the horizon is a bit askew!
A nice portrait of a heron wading steathily past...
Two busy drake teal, late one evening. This is late April and it's cold, below freezing point. The infra-red flash on the camera has enhanced their contrasting head pattern in an unfamiliar way.
A red deer stag stops by for a drink on a still evening...
A group of red deer cool down in the loch on the first really warm day of the spring (the camera, in direct sun, registers 30°C)
Two drake mallards - looking like they're dabbling for food - at 1.30 in the morning. In late May it won't be completely dark at Forsinard in the middle of the night but also, ducks detect food by touch a lot of the time.
A pair of teal swimming quickly past on the breezy day. These birds - probably the most common ducks at Forsinard - are mostly vegetarian as adults but later in the season, their young ducklings will be looking for invertebrate food, just like scoter ducklings.