Leaf litter

Mixed bag from set C.No story to tell,no behaviour to comment on just a collection of pictures of animals out and about on their daily activities.The pics stretch out over a month though ,earliest first and show just how deep the leaf litter has got......

Fox carrying rabbit

It looks to me that this fox is pausing in front of the trailcam to adjust it,s grip of the rabbit in it,s jaws.The fox may of just caught it as they do tend to run off with it a bit while it,s still wriggling and then once they have a firm hold will carry the rabbit by the middle with the belly facing downwards for balance to somewhere and eat it......

Fox bounds after rabbit

I,ve been flat out these past few weeks,flat out at work and with the hobbies then flat out(horizontal) at home exhausted.Trail camera-wise the pics have taken a bit of a nose-dive but then it is late summer after all,pick of the crop for me is this clump of 3 pics showing a fox spying some rabbits then in the next one bounding after one,top left hand corner,then the last pic showing a rabbit bolting for home.The 2 cubs here have disappeared from trailcam view and presumably moved to elsewhere in the area.The badger/s still pass through as do the roe buck and the doe with it,s fawn.

All the evidence points to the big cat that was in the area in spring being miles away in it,s late summer area but i,m hoping for it to return in october as it has done for the last 2 autumns and it just might wander past this Bushnell which i didn,t have last year.

You may be wondering why i have posted a poorish pic of the roe buck sniffing where he has marked in weeks gone by,but not recently,well the roe rut is well and truly over that i can make out but it seems that this buck still makes sure that he has some scent left on his marking trees.I had thought that that roe bucks only scent mark around the rut which this one has but never knew that they still display some interest much later on like this one has.Yet another interesting facet of behaviour that the trailcams have revealed............

One eyed fox with rabbit pic

 

Here,s a pic of that fox with a rabbit,I have set a cam just below the other,one on pics and one on video.Strangely enough i usually get 2000 odd pics a fortnight off the cam here but since i,ve set one with video this has dropped down to 1000 odd.I,m sure this is due to the longer(15 sec.video length) infra red flash scaring creatures off a bit but due to the high amount of activity here and the interesting behaviour being shown setting a cam up for video was a must.A 10 minute delay on the video set also was needed as the rabbits tend to hang around here for long periods and interesting though they may be watching an hour of rabbits chewing can get very laborious.As it is i sit through about 2 hours of video every time with the 2 cams set whereas with pictures even 2000 pics can be scanned through far more easily.The vid sets are well worth the effort though and there is not the blurry night time pics that often plague these Bushnells.I see Bushnell have brought out a covert,no glow cam with HD and audio vid,one of these added to my small string of trail cameras would be ideal for the high activity places but at 300 odd quid a pop it will have to wait.Most farms around are getting stuck in to the corn harvest and what with being august there are a lot of people about,these 2 factors usually contribute to a leap in big cat sightings but whether this happens this year we shall have to wait and see,one things for sure that trail camera theft incidents also leap at this time of year and so only safe and sound sets are on the cards for the time being.......

I still can,t seem to suss out how to comment on even my own blog but where there,s a will there,s a way etc.etc.
Thanks for your comment John i had to laugh,i,m only assuming it,s injured as it,s eye doesn,t reflect any light when it passes the cam at nightime.Hope your Willows leg is healing up....

One eyed fox with rabbit

Not as strange as folk

It,s all been going on in front of camC ,loads of new pics to post like one of the best badger ones i,ve ever had in the first one.The 2 fox cubs are inseparable with one not being too far away from the other,the 3rd and 4th pics show a baby rabbit being eaten at night and the 4th pic is a "spot the roe deer competition".The last 3 pics show a fox doing something at a place where they regularly do and often one of the other foxes will come by and have a sniff and maybe do something themselves or even roll in it but what did surprise me was this rabbit which had a roll around itself,reason unknown.
They say in Yorkshire i think it is "there,s nowt as strange as folk", very true i,d have to agree but that rabbit is acting a little strange methinks......

2 rabbits bucking

Fox has rabbit at night

Not the best of quality these pics i know,but they do illustrate just how much the rabbits are getting hammered.This won,t affect their general numbers though ,all areas have exploding amounts of them by now...........

Rabbits do touch

It is often said that rabbits like roe deer,not being herd animals, don,t touch each other out of affection or whatever

and this is often true so this pic of 2 young rabbits nose to nose is rare enough,but young animals are very exploratory of the world around them and sometimes of each other it would seem. The second pic shows a rabbit preening itself and
in the last pic this rabbit has found a blade of grass amongst the bluebells..........

Rabbit relaxes while moorhen walks past

A different sort of pictures for a change,this rabbit looks very relaxed while a moorhen walks past looking for food.It,s amazing how animals that don,t either hunt each other or compete with food will tolerate each others presence bordering on indifference though the rabbit is still very alert with it,s ears on radar mode.......

Fox with baby rabbit in mouth

Sometimes i curse the angle i have set a cam,when i check to see what i have got there is only a tail in the picture at best,at worst nothing at all.

Not so today for this dog fox has caught a baby rabbit somewhere,probably in the field edge and has decided to bring it back here in front of the cam to eat it,all of it,because there doesn,t seem to be anything left of it. on the ground when he has finished.The baby boom of young rabbits is in full flood

now with hordes of them everywhere it seems and just about every predator capable of catching them is on them at the moment.I,ve noticed second litters to does that had the first ones early so with an average of 3 to a litter and 3 maybe 4 litters till august for the mature does that is one heck of a lot of rabbits.They soon get wise to their hunters too and adjust their feeding patterns some will also be digging summer bolt holes out in the open near where they feed to escape to when hard pressed,it may be easy pickings now for this fox but he will have to work progressively harder over the coming months to carrying on with this rabbiting caper,foxes adapt too though

and find plenty of other ways to fill their bellys........