With the UK still in lockdown I have dusted off my old camera trap rig in preparation for winter. After seeing images by Peter Mather’s incredible camera trap images using split level (above and below water) camera trap rigs I wanted to see what I could capture. Now having worked with foxes in my back garden for quite a number of years I knew that they would be fairly reliable subjects.
Now the garden landscape has changed considerable and it was a bit of a task finding a suitable location for the camera. I settled for a walkway at the very farthest part of the garden and set about constructing the rig. Now this is a lot more comfortable in the colder months as you are often plagued by mosquitos in the summer months, often extending the time setting up from 3o minutes to a couple of hours (plus a load of bites!).
Now the first few images I got where of the local rat community that have set up shop in one of the sheds, providing shelter from the elements as well as tucking into some of the fish food for my pond ! Now I will be trying a setup specifically for them at a later date but here’s one of the images from the setup.
As the nights went by I would periodically change over the batteries and SD cards with nothing but a few rat images and the odd magpie. But after a few nights I have slowly started to get an image that I like and I’m looking forward to seeing if this winter will bring any snow.
If you would like to see more of the behind the scenes then check out this video.
