Much of 2023 has passed without any new blogs from me. No excuse really except that I developed a dislike of sitting in my windowless office on my pc!
Quick headlines, I may write more about these later. Workshops over the past few months have gone well. The squirrels, both locally and in the Cairngorms continue to delight; I had some lovely days with clients on the North East coast too. Great to welcome back the ospreys and dragonflies, although the weather for the latter proved a bit challenging for photographs (too dry in June and too unsettled afterwards). I spent an enjoyable week on Mull – best weather I’ve experienced there, and a pleasant few days down in Perthshire and over on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. I briefly owned a Nikon Z8… it broke after a mere two weeks . 3 months later I finally have a new one!
I can’t fit everything into one blog though, otherwise it’ll be a book, so in this entry I’m going to concentrate on the normally nocturnal wildlife – badgers and pine martens, both animals I love and always hope to see in the flesh during the longer days. I’m very fortunate living where I do. There are many many badgers living close to my house. 2 setts within a few minutes walk, although neither are directly accessible for wildlife viewing or photography. The woods have healthy numbers of pine martens too.
June was a very dry month in the UK. There were even some water restrictions in place in Scotland with a few of the lochs at very low levels – unheard of! This made life tough for the badgers. At my most local sett, the female had three hungry young cubs and almost certainly would have been struggling to find worms which are badgers’ bread and butter so to speak. This meant she was in my garden early every evening, gratefully scoffing the peanuts and honey I put out for her. Oh, and she emptied all my garden pots too – I wasn’t so delighted by that.
She tended to appear solo in early evening, and it’s always a thrill to look out the window and see her on the lawn. She was so immersed in eating that I could creep out into the garden and sit on a bench to photograph her, but I usually sat in my Nitehawk pop-up hide. The best photographs were, as last year, of her approach to the garden from the wood. She’d stop at the entrance, sniffing the air, ensuring it was safe. She looks so innocent!
Once she reached the peanuts, she never looked up again. So I mostly just sat back and enjoyed being in her presence. I do have a few images though…
Cabin guests loved seeing her too, either from the hide or through the windows of my rental cabin The Drey Inchberry.
I left a trail camera in the garden to monitor activity. It was great to see the cubs visiting with mum and the interactions between the badgers. I didn’t expect this though! Amazing to see 8 badgers at once. I presume they came from the two local setts and imagine that they are closely related as badgers are very territorial and wouldn’t suffer incomers.
The same female visits my local squirrel site, which is also a few minutes walk from the sett. I noticed that the nuts in the squirrel feeder were going down very quickly. I suspected pine martens and squirrels, but, imagine my surprise when I realised who was emptying it. She’s one very determined lady.
Having seen this, I removed the log, as I didn’t want her to hurt herself, especially with the cubs to look after. However, as mentioned above she’s a very determined lady…
Fortunately, as soon as the Scottish schools broke up for the holidays the hot, dry weather came to an end and we had a fairly miserable couple of months so the worms returned and Mum badger didn’t need to risk injury to access the nuts. She’s still in the garden every evening (after dark now) and I hope the cubs survived too.
Seeing pine martens in the flesh proved to be more of a challenge this year, especially initially. I have a spot in a local Scots Pine wood where I successfully photographed a male last summer. He wasn’t particularly reliable or relaxed, but it was always a thrill when his little brown head appeared behind the fallen tree trunk and I managed a few images I was pleased with, most especially this one (when I discovered he was male!).
Whilst exploring the wood, I discovered a beautiful open clearing carpeted in heather. Deciding that that would make a perfect spot for pine marten and red squirrel photography over the summer I set up my trail camera and started putting out some nuts and honey. But, nothing appeared, other than one sighting of a crested tit. So disappointing. I therefore returned to the original clearing and began scattering nuts every day from March. I have a Reolink Keen Ranger PT camera which uses a sim card and notifies me if there’s any activity – I can then either dial in and watch live if my dodgy internet permits, or watch at a later time. The picture quality isn’t as good as my Browning trail cameras, but it’s brilliant for monitoring whether or not martens were appearing, and if they were doing so in daylight.
I had a long wait for daylight appearances this summer and they were very intermittent. I did eventually get to spend a little time with the same male as last year.
Great to see him again and to know that he survived the winter months. However, it was to get better. I was sitting at home one evening when I received an alert on my phone at 9pm. I logged into my Reolink camera and couldn’t believe my eyes – 3 pine martens! A mum with two young kits. It was very early to see kits this well developed out and about, but brilliant! They stayed for 10 minutes before bouncing off. The following night the family returned, but not until early morning and I then didn’t see them again for a bit. But it was really exciting to know there were kits in the area.
In early July the male was rarely showing and I figured that was it for the season, so I stopped putting out food other than in the feeder. But, I was so wrong. With the male no longer appearing the female and her kits reappeared and became regular visitors either together or separately. The kits were so much fun to watch on my trail camera. One would run up on top of the squirrel feeder and throw itself off repeatedly – laugh out loud moments. Typically though, every time I went up hoping to see them they didn’t appear, at least not for a while. I then had a good spell.
I only saw all three at the same time on one occasion. Mum and one kit had come in when suddenly the kit became very attentive, staring to the right. They then both ran to the left and the third appeared from the left. The other two then returned. The kits fed and played together. Frustratingly the light was falling fast by this time and two fast moving kits were impossible to photograph. I therefore shot this film of them.
As I write this in early November, the kits are still popping by to scoff some peanuts from the feeder but in darkness now. My hope is that the female will bring next year’s kits here too and I’ll be able to spend time with them. Watching pine martens is thrilling. I think the fact they are elusive and not very reliable just makes it all the more exciting. Such a privilege to be able to sit in their company.
I do also have pine martens in my local wood at my red squirrel site. They have always been nocturnal though. In recent months the two kits have taken to using my site as their playground, probably because it’s not covered in bracken and is relatively flat. They play for ages at a time, chasing and pouncing on one another, it’s brilliant to watch.
Apologies for all the videos in this blog, but it’s the best way to show the badgers and pine martens. Seeing what they get up to is brilliant and the natural behaviours witnessed using trail cameras in always interesting and entertaining.
Much as I’m excited for the winter season ahead, I do also find myself looking forward to spending time with both these species again next spring.
While I’ve got you… I have 2024 calendars (A4, red squirrel and Scottish wildlife) as well as new greeting cards in my Etsy store, many of which are suitable for use as Christmas cards.
I also still have some availability for winter wildlife tours as well as crested tit, mountain hare and red squirrel workshops over the next few months. Please check my website for details.
Karen Miller's Wildlife photography blog 