Feeling pretty smug after the success of the campaign to catch the Barn Owl on a camera-trap I thought I would try putting four cameras out on the reserve. Forsinard being the largest RSPB reserve there was sure to be a wide variety of wildlife that might possibly appear on the cameras...maybe a pine marten or a fox, a red grouse or even a stoat. Well things didn’t really work out that way and I was brought down to earth a little. As you can see from the photographs below, the results were a little mixed...
Lots of...erm...landscape!
It appears weather can trigger the cameras a lot...Snow!
1,564 Images taken on this camera and the only one that isn't landscape is a photo of myself! (Less sensitivity next time I think)
We did get some wildlife though...we think this is a pair of Teal
Red Deer stag
Red Deer hind
The species I had hoped to capture are indeed “out there” and camera-traps can be very useful for scientific monitoring studies and for giving you an impression of what species are using specific areas of the reserve. They can however be easily triggered and result in thousands of images of...well...not very much to be honest, as the photos above show.
Not to be deterred I will be placing the camera-traps out again, in a slightly different location this time, and will be sure to add anything of interest to the blog.
Lol, I feel your frustration. At least the quality is pretty good when something interesting does wander into view- the stag pic is super!
Good luck- love the Red Deer shots. We've tried regularly for stoat and never managed, I think it's something to do with their size and speed that never triggers the camera in time.