Birding Patience
13th December 2024
Garden Visitors
I've always been pretty fortunate with visiting wildlife into my garden.
Back in the Midlands, I would regularly see foxes, with the adults sleeping on the veranda of my rather wonky summerhouse, with the vixen and her cubs visiting during the warmer months, wreaking havoc through my pond and flower beds.
On Mull, when I lived in Dervaig, snipe, woodcock, hedgehogs and rabbits frequented the garden. Eagles soared overhead (I do miss that sight - hell, who wouldn't?) and owls screeched through at night.
Here in the Highlands, on the outskirts of Inverness, I am very lucky to have a garden that backs on to a large woodland. As well as a good variety of birds, such as lots of finches, siskins, a treecreeper, tawny owls, hooded crows (more on them later), I have also have fairly regular visits from several red squirrels.
They're such a joy to see, unlike the greys that used to destroy the bird feeders in my Birmingham garden. They climb over the fence, grab a nut from one of the feeding boxes I've screwed to the posts out there, and sit, looking like something from a fairy tale, nibbling away.
And of late, they have been busy caching the whole hazelnuts I've been putting out, all around the lawn and beds.
While I have been living here for over a year now, I haven't (yet) redesigned the layout of the garden. The previous owners clearly favoured privacy, planting a line of bushes along the steep slope of the lawn. The garden is basically on a hillside, so slopes upwards towards the woodland beyond. While it works, and keeps the house mostly hidden from view (there's a path through the woods behind), it does mean that I can't see all the garden.
My intention is to remove the line of bushes, clearing my view for the whole of the garden, right up to the fence. I've already addressed the privacy issue by filling in the gaps of the fence with additional panels. And I've relocated some of the laurels in the garden to the fence, plus added a holly and two pyracantha shrubs, to provide cover and berries for the birds.
But right now, I can't see the back fence. And here seems to be the area of interest.
A good while ago, just after midnight, I was in my kitchen and glanced out of the window. I only saw it for a second, but it was definitely a pine marten scampering past the end of my drive. Friends had said they would be in the area, but without being able to "watch" the fence, I wasn't sure if they'd visit.
CCTV
I needed a camera. I had tried with a more traditional wildlife camera device, but had come away with hundreds of clips of the laurel bushes waving in the breeze. Occasionally it would capture something of a red squirrel, but the effort of scrolling through all the clips outweighed the enjoyment or interest in it.
Then a friend back in the Midlands suggested I try a Ring doorbell camera - not the actual doorbell part, I suspect the wildlife would be unlikely to press anything to activate it, but the CCTV style motion sensor cameras, with night vision, and programmable zones. He uses lots of them at his home to monitor the hedgehogs visiting his garden, and those he's helped recover and released back into the wild.
Based on his advice, I waited for a Black Friday deal, and bought one. Charged the battery up, and then positioned it out in the garden. It's clever because you can set the zone where motion is to be detected, so I drew lines around the annoying bushes, focusing on the fence itself, and the feeders.
The old saying of "Boys with toys" definitely applied here, with me checking the camera every few minutes on the first evening, but it yielded nothing.
It was only the first night of trying it, what did I expect? I should know with wildlife that things take time.
I was chatting with a friend on WhatsApp at the time, making jokes about herds of wildebeest roaming by, and leopards sitting on the fence. Or a lack thereof. So I wasn't expecting to see something much larger than a squirrel helping itself to the nuts in the far feeder box when I checked.
It definitely caught me by surprise, and I didn't know how I could tell my friend that there was actually a pine marten on the video feed I was watching, so came out with the now infamous line of "Pine marten, I sh*t you not" to try to get past the old Cry Wolf fibs I'd been spinning.
It was there for about ten minutes, before scampering down the fence, looking briefly into the feeder box closer to the camera, and then off. Not to be seen again that night.
First night success. I was blown away.
Since then I have been seeing it most nights. The camera has had varying success at picking up the motion from it. Some of this comes from the frosty weather, when the view from the sensor is clearly obscured by the ice crystals. But I've saved a few videos of the pine marten visits, and it's whet my appetite for sorting something better outside, for perhaps improved viewing, or better still, getting some decent images and videos.
My plans for the garden include moving the wood stores around, so the hooded crows can't see and subsequently attack their own reflection in my bedroom windows. For such an intelligent bird, they're incredibly stupid at times. Then I need to clear a lot of the bushes away, and I'd also like a pond.
I loved the pond in my Birmingham garden. So much interest from literally the day after I'd filled it, with water boatmen present almost immediately, then dragonflies and damsels, newts and more making their home in it.
I also want to set the garden up so I can take photos of the birds visiting it. To see siskin so frequently is a joy. I'm hoping for redpoll too, and given the location, it is possible for crested tits. Now that would be a special garden tick!
Almost forgot, I've also seen a weasel in the garden! Yes, a weasel. It was scurrying around the logs in the wood store one morning, when I was getting ready to head over to Mull for a workshop. Too fast for pictures, and it vanished under my shed before I could line up a shot.
Lots to do, and lots of potential. Stay tuned, and I'll be adding some of the footage of the pine marten(s) to my YouTube channel at some point.
