After a few nights of lashing rain, we decided to put our chicken remnants back out again to see if the wandering waste disposers still loved us. The bait went out at 23:15.
I’m sure we had no fog or mist last night but the video clips that were recorded were decidedly murky – but at least there were some. I’m a little concerned but I’m hoping that it may be a general fogging of the lens caused by condensation having gone out from a warm(ish) house to slightly sub-zero outside. I did put the camera out early to acclimatize but I will try to remember to wipe the lens next time. Anyway …
Image quality aside, I was delighted to see the return of Broc at 23:41. Broc sniffed at the chicken remnants but left them alone, wandering off towards the camera. Then I noticed something – only one of Broc’s eyes was shining back at me. One headlight bulb had blown. I revisited my record of Broc’s first appearance and, sure enough, the left eye didn’t reflect the (infrared) light. I hadn’t noticed in my excitement at that visit. This was certainly the same badger and it seems to be blind in one eye.
At 00:45 a fox was discernible through the murk. As unclear as the image is, I’ve compared this to earlier clearer images and the black markings are enough to tell me that this was Limpy back again. Happily, his limp is now very slight, hardly noticeable.
Limpy seemed to polish off most of the chicken but apparently not quite. At 02:17 another fox turned up and grabbed a morsel. I don’t think there’s enough detail to compare well to other records but this was a very agile, perhaps smaller individual that crouched low as it ate. I don’t recall seeing that posture before. I must look harder at my earlier shots.
We weren’t done yet. At 04:11 the temperature had dropped to –6°C when the camera triggered again and just about recorded another fox visit. This time there was no sign of any eating having taken place so I imagine the chicken really was now all gone. Perhaps the scent lingered on the grass and attracted this last visitor. As you can see, there’s absolutely no point in my trying to identify this one. 🙁
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