I’ve been foxed by British-bloody-Summer-Time. There’s often some timepiece that one forgets to adjust. Why must we change the clocks? Midday, 12:00, is when the sun is at its height, for Darwin’s sake. Making midday an hour past the zenith makes no sense.
I’d been through my stills cameras, my proper cameras with decent optics, adjusting them but I forgot to reset foxcam. No matter, it was hardly calamitous. It’s just that I though fox-formerly-known-as-Limpy had turned up particularly early at 21:40. Then I realized that I hadn’t even put the chicken carcass out until 22:00. DUH! 😀
So, fox-formerly-known-as-Limpy pitched up at 22:40, attracted by the smell of a luscious, free range, Dutchy organic chicken carcass courtesy of Waitrose. I’m still trying to make up for the unidentified frying objects containing pork slurry from Aldi. Here he is and said luscious, free range, Dutchy organic chicken carcass is to his left.
A while later foxcam, still too early for BST, caught Limpy wandering around the garden with the entire luscious, free range, Dutchy organic chicken carcass firmly clamped in his jaws. He wandered towards Foxcam. Not content with his mouthful, he attempted to pick up a supplementary piece of chicken which I imagine must have been a winglet. I think he actually managed it; very dextrous. [Can one be dextrous with a mouth? Just a thought.]
At 02:40 FAT [Foxcam Adjusted Time] Headlights the Badger turned up, tripping the infrared light fantastic until it decided to dump its bum on the so-called grass for a spot of scent marking/peeing. Much relieved, it presented itself to foxcam quite nicely thereafter.
The night wasn’t over yet. Another fox, with a very differently shaped tail, turned up at 04:50 FAT. About one third of the way down, the brush looked pinched, much less full. We had seen a very distinctive fox that we called Ratty with a very scrappy tail many weeks ago. We haven’t seen it since. Our first thought was that this new fox could’ve been Ratty with the fur on the tail growing back. I’m not convinced, though – this fox looks slighter, less heavily built. A mystery.
Foxcam had been recording seemingly random length video clips for the first time, not the 20s I’d set. Sure that this was nothing to do with having forgotten BST, I contacted NatureSpy, the suppliers. They suggested this is the first sign that the batteries are running low, even though the battery condition indicator looks fine. I’ll change ‘em.
With Rosemary’s trail camera, her batteries worked for around 3 months. This was continuous use every day and night, taking 20-second videos. Rabbits kept the camera busy during the day. When the batteries went (Lithium), it stopped abruptly one night. Didn’t realise for a few days as I only check the camera once a week. I thought at first a faulty switch because I could turn it on and there was a settings display. So left it for another night and there was zilch. Now even turning it on and off, nothing, no display. New batteries brought it to life, and it has been running happily again. Now only during the night. You have have to reenter all the configuration information, nothing remembered after the batteries were removed.
We’ll see next time I have some fox bait. 🙂 I could put some peanuts out.