Foxes

Over the past few weeks we have had a vixen fox coming in a couple of times a night for food. The size of her teats and they way that she gathers food and takes it away with her would suggest that she has cubs somewhere.
We noticed recently that a dog fox had also started turning up. And then a couple of nights ago both the dog and the vixen arrived together to feed.

dog and vixen

We also saw one bolshie hedgehog decide that he / she was going to have some food regardless of any fox…
He gave the fox a bit of a nudge as it would do to one of it’s own for food. The fox give’s the WHATEVER! look and they then share from the bowl.

bolshie hedgehog fox and hedgehog feeding

The video’s for both of these events can be seen on the video pages..

Heron

Last week we had a heron land in the garden. Although it was very nice to see this wonderful bird it did manage to remove and kill one of the large fish from the pond.
Fortunately I had the camera to hand and managed to get a few shots off as it noticed me looking and flew off. I took the photos through a closed window in the kitchen but it still didn’t take long for the bird to see me and take flight.

Here are the pics..

Heron

Heron at the pond

Heron taking off

Heron in flight

First Hedgehog of 2008

The early hours of this morning saw the first hedgehog of 2008. It visited the hog feed station and one of the Hog boxes. I have placed some straw in the boxes and put some food out in the feeding station…
Fingers crossed the Hogs will return tonight.

First Hog of 2008

First Hog of 2008

The First Hog videos can be seen on the video pages of the site..

Welcome back Hogs..

Winter Clean Up

So its been a little quiet in the garden.. the fox has gone, the hogs are off sleeping but still plenty of birds and of course the little wood mice..
I have taken the opportunity to clean out the hog boxes and wash down the hog feeding area along with some camera maintenance.
The Bird box is visited every now and then by a pair of Tits.. Will they choose to nest there? Lets hope..
I have placed an empty jellybean container in the hog feeding station and placed some of the nut based hog food inside it. I have made a hole in the lid just big enough for the mice to enter..
Most nights if you check the playback you can see the little fella popping in and out of the container for food..
This is giving me an idea for another cam.. Maybe a close-up mouse feeding cam..
I am looking forward to the return of the hogs and the re-habitation of the boxes.
By next autumn the builders should be finished next door and the hogs will hopefully stay for hibernation.

Site Additions

A rainy wet Sunday morning… What better time to do some work on the website so I decided on the addition of a photo gallery and a chat channel.
Within the gallery I will place photographs that I have taken in and around the garden as-well as some stills that I have pulled from the video feeds.
Some good action and behaviour shots have been captured on the video feeds, all I need to do now is sift through them and over time add them to the gallery.

Feeds Restored

Ok I have restored the feeds. I have back stepped / reinstalled the software and all seems to be fine. If you cannot access the feeds please email me nigel@ukgardenwildlife.co.uk

Software upgrade now complete…

Failed software Upgrade

Due to a failed software upgrade the console feeds will be down whilst I reinstall and back step the software.
Please bare with me whilst I reinstall.

Ok the software upgrade has now been completed with all the bugs ironed out… Just need to tweak the capture levels on the cameras…

Change of Internet Service Provider

I have just recently changed ISP. The new ISP uses dynamic IP addresses; this means i have had to set up dynamic DNS hostname to enable the links to the website PC.
I apologise if links to the camera feeds are a little hit and miss at the moment the same goes for the live video /audio feed.
This is because new ADSL connections require a 10 day stabilisation period. The speed of the connection varies and drop outs can occur. Each time it drops out the dynamic DNS has to pick up the new IP address and re-route to the website PC.

Anyway enough techie stuff… In a nut shell it should all be back to normal soon.

Additional Cameras

I now have the ability to add an extra 4 camera feeds to the website. Over the next few days I will fit the hardware to the PC and add some extra cameras.
The two additional cameras so far will be at a squirrel feeder and in a bird box.

There is a squirrel that walks long the garden fence every now and then, as soon as it gets wind of the food I’m hoping that it will stop by and have a regular snack.

Changes

Well a few changes here and there… I have up dated the website with the inclusion of a live streaming audio video feed on the links page. I have also added a video page; here you can see videos of the garden critters.

Now the sad news… The builders have started on the neighbour’s extension. This initially frightened away both of the Hogs that were staying in the boxes… Fortunately we now have one resident, not sure if it will stay for hibernation as the building work is very noisy during the day.

Just down the road there was a squashed hog… This coincided with the beginning of the building work… Hope this wasn’t one of the resident hogs.

The wood mice are now regular visitors to the feeding station; this has also created cat attention. So I have made a few modifications to the feeding area with just enough room for the hogs to enter… The wood mice should hopefully now be safe.