A Variety of Wildlife on the Poor's Allotment
Posted: 21 March 2022
I've made a compilation of the clips that captured activity on the Poor's Allotment last week. You could just let it roll, and watch the pheasant that appeared to want to display directly in front of the camera. But before that you'll see the most common of the animals captured, Muntjac Deer, both male and female with, on one occasion, a juvenile being suckled. You'll also see the rarer Chinese Water Deer. Smaller animals include several appearances of foxes and badgers and once you'll see a squirrel. There's further information about the clips below.
0:00 - Monday 06:50
The first 1m 25s shows an incident that took place last Monday at 06:50. The rather washed out colour is caused by the bright sun and the fact that the camera faces east. You see a male Muntjac that freezes on seeing something approaching from the north. With no wind and the reeds as motionless as the deer, you might almost think that the video has stopped running. A feature of the camera is that it stops running after a minute if it can detect no motion, so I fade in the following clip after the camera begins to run again and we see the Muntjac leave the frame.
1:04 - Monday 06:52
I have taken some 20 seconds out of the second clip before a Chinese Water Deer appears. This must have been what caught the eye of the Muntjac.
1:25 - Monday 13:27
A young Muntjac demands a feed from its mother. The other videos captured of this activity seem to confirm that the roughness the young animal displays towards its mother is quite normal. It's touching to see her turn to lick her young part way through the sequence. Because of the limitations of the camera, again, after a minute, we have to fade into the following clip as the pair leave the scene.
2:33 - Monday 17:18
It appears that a different mother and young Muntjac arrive on the scene. This mother does not have the boil-like bumps on the top of her hindquarters that the first had. I am not clear whether the bumps on the earlier deer are nothing more than something caught in her fur or are signs of real injury, so it could be the same animal that has now managed to remove the offending objects. The light in this clip is such that you can clearly make out the path that the deer follow across the bridge, from the marks their hooves leave.
3:30 - Monday 17:24
At 3:30 we fade to the next clip captured six minutes later that show the pair returning over the bridge, to be joined a few seconds later by the male.
4:00 - Wednesday 06:50
A female Muntjac may have approached from across the bridge, but more likely from the Poor's Allotment side as see is soon joined by a male.
5:17 - Thursday 03:01
Our first night time capture of the week shows a fox passing by at 03:01 on Thursday morning. Judging by the way she squats just before leaving the scene this one appears to be a vixen. A couple of hours later, at 05:22 another passes through the field of view.
5:28 - Thursday 08:44
This time the later arrival seems to have just one of the bumps on its hindquarters. These ever changing marks are a puzzle to me!
6:12 - Thursday 10:14
Now we see a squirrel cross the bridge. It pauses briefly before turning to the left on the far side and leaping off the boardwalk out of sight.
6:25 - Saturday 02:58
If you ever wanted proof that a badger can move at speed don't blink for the next few seconds or you'll miss it! That is followed by another traverse of the scene at a brisk pace, that took place at 04:10. The second clip gives the impression that this is a well trodden route and not some new careful exploration of the scene.
6:37 - Saturday 12:53
A Pheasant stays for a full minute barely moving but I cut this clip short and at 6:52 move on to 17:14 when, once again, we see female Muntjac that crosses the bridge and proceeds to climb the mound by "Dave" our red deer sculpture, and browse the ground there. A minute later we fade to a male Muntjac but he chooses to stay on the Poor's Allotment.
8:11 - Sunday 01:29
We're back to a nighttime shot as a fox traverses the scene. The final clip, captured at 05:10, appears to confirm that our badger does regularly patrol the ground further onto the Poor's Allotment
