March 2025

Last year, Andy (Howard) captured images of a pine marten visiting his red squirrel woodland hide, and we spent some time trying to encourage it to revisit, to little avail.

This year, one started to visit again, only earlier and very occasionally, in the daytime. With some time on my hands late in March, I decided to spend a few hours waiting in the hide, hoping.

I'd put out food for it, including peanuts, safe peanut butter, hazelnuts, eggs and honey. Then it was just a case of sitting and waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

The light came and went, and I was about to head home when something in the darkness caught my eye. A pale patch, moving. Bins up and I was looking at a pine marten, standing on its hind legs, looking around the woodland. It was such a buzz.

I had to raise my ISO to ludicrous levels to get any images, but it showed promise, and of course encouraged me to try again over the following days, weather permitting.

I had managed to get some half decent portraits of the pine marten after a couple of visits, albeit at moderately high ISOs, plus some video, which brightened up the scene remarkably.

Then, on one evening while the sunlight was still lighting up parts of the woodland, it appeared, and seemingly posed for the best image yet, again standing tall on its hind legs, but with the amber sunshine lighting up its head.

It's a no-brainer for March's IOTM.

We're hoping to be able to offer woodland hide days soon, that will potentially provide clients with the chance of photographing the red squirrels present, plus birds like woodpeckers, crested tits, long-tailed tits and treecreepers, plus the extremely attractive possibility of pine martens and badgers, as I saw one out in the daylight there very recently.

Keep an eye on my Social Media and on here for news on that project.