Competition
Exciting news! We are running a Spotting Competition for anyone who would like to participate. We will be giving a prize to the Spotter who classifies the most images during April and the first two weeks of May! If you haven’t registered as a Spotter yet it is easy to do, just go to the Mammal Web site at www.mammalweb.org click on the Spotter button and you will be prompted to enter your name and email address. Once you have done that you will be sent an email with a link to confirm that you are not a robot and then you are all ready to go!
There is a tutorial in the Learn section of the website that gives full instructions on how to classify images, so have a go – it is quite addictive – and you might win!
Spotting Tutorial video
News from the cameras
Once again spring has sprung and we are starting to see more activity as many of our mammals are getting ready for the breeding season.
The winter has been relatively mild and quite dry. As a result some MammalWeb Trappers have reported that they have been seeing hedgehogs almost continuously through the winter months. At Rainton Meadows we had a period between November and March with no image captures of hedgehogs but the reserve is situated in a frost pocket and temperatures tend to dip below those of other urban areas.
Spring hedgehog
Roe deer activity has also been increasing, we should be seeing the first fawns in the next few weeks, the young are usually born any time after the beginning of May, can’t tell if this one is pregnant though.
Roe deer hind
The bucks have also been appearing more regularly recently and their antlers are almost fully grown now and are out of velvet.
Roe deer buck
The foxes have also been much more active in the past few weeks – below is a still from a video that one of our Trappers captured of a vixen that looks as though she is pregnant. Expect very cute fox cubs soon!
Pregnant vixen?
And finally, a very lucky capture of a stoat on the camera at Rainton – it’s quite small in the frame so you may have to zoom in – but it is definitely there on the right.
Stoat in the sunshine
