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Post by NellyDee on Sept 14, 2017 11:16:02 GMT
I hide a bowl of peanuts and a dish, with some sultanas in, under the BBQ which is covered. This is where the Pine Marten come at night. Well yesterday I decided to fill the bowl early afternoon as I was going out, but checked when I got back. The bowl was totally filled and heaped up with the gravel stones from the drive. The nuts buried under it all. It can only have been the Red Squirrel. Yes I removed all the gravel, but had visions of the poor squirrel spending all afternoon lugging the stones to the bowl to fill it up and hide the nuts ready for the winter. I did hum and ha as to leave it and get another bowl, but the nuts would have rotted in the damp. Still feel guilty though.
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Post by Tringa on Sept 14, 2017 13:31:13 GMT
Don't feel guilty but how about setting up a trail camera to capture the squirrel if it does it again. That would be quite a video.
Dave
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Post by NellyDee on Sept 15, 2017 8:14:02 GMT
Do you think the trail camera would work under the cover? Had not thought of doing that before, Daughter has bought me 2 new cameras for my birthday. one a garden camera that connects to TV, and a H-View CTV wildlife camera, so I can watch indoors. Waiting for Daughter to return to set it all up for me (can't get my head around the instructions). Meantime will put old trail camera under the cover and hope Nutty repeats his actions.
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Post by Tringa on Sept 15, 2017 11:12:52 GMT
I have just re-read your first post, Helen and I think I see what you mean. I'm guessing the space under the BBQ cover is fairly small. The drawback I have found with our trail camera (and I suspect most/all) is that when it is dark enough for the IR lights to switch on the images/videos of anything very close to the camera are bleached.
One solution is to cover some of the IR lights so the light illuminating the scene is reduced but, as you can guess, this is very much trial and error.
Is it possible to relocate the dish to a more open area, or would your friendly jays spot the goodies?
Dave
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Post by NellyDee on Sept 16, 2017 16:19:55 GMT
I did a trial run today OK but I only had half the bowl in view. Very surprised! apart from the fact that there were 47 videos. All with a very busy vole collecting the nuts. I think it is a Bank Vole. surprised that it has come down to what is in effect our driveway and a deck around which are timber raised planters. There are masses of bank voles and their holes are all over the open ground, to get down here it would have either had to come down from an 8ft wall that is holding up the ground behind, or come in via the drive way.  Vole by Helen Skelton, on Flickr I have had a re think about having food here near the house as last night all that was on the videos were wood mice dashing back and forth, and now it seems the voles as well. Not good. So I am going to remove the bowls and find somewhere on the upper ground to feed the pine marten - or give up feeding them. The red squirrels have their own feeders - jay proof. |
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Post by rowanberry on Sept 17, 2017 10:31:26 GMT
The pine martens frequently came for what you put out last year- is it just that their natural supply of food is still available, and so they're not hungry for the nuts yet? It would be a shame if you have to move their dish so far away that you don't get to see it!
I've found that after a certain time, my jays stop being interested in caching acorns- it might be that the same is true for your red squirrel. Once winter sets in he might prefer eating the nuts to burying them, and then he'll stop trying to cover them with gravel.
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Post by NellyDee on Sept 18, 2017 8:28:57 GMT
I have three red squirrels now and they are still frantically burying nuts. The pine marten that came every night and I caught on trail camera, no longer seems to be coming to the bowl under the cover. Two other pine martens - I think are the parents, still appear now and then to where I put food for the badger on the higher ground, I scatter nuts and sultanas and some times peanut butter spread once it has gone dark and the jays have gone to bed. I think that the young one that came every day may well have moved on to territory of its own. Maybe its parents have told it to move away or she has found a mate. The parents did have three youngsters and two disappeared very early on.
Much as I love them the wood mice are becoming a problem and now having the voles come near the house as well I think it is time to stop putting any feed down. I shall leave them to feed on the spill around the feeders, which are not near the house.
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