All posts in Highland Diary

Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve

Passing the Old Man of Hoy

Avocets in Flight

In recent years here in the Highlands at low altitudes a fall of snow that is anything other than wet slush, gone in a few hours has become something of a rarity. Even on the high tops snow now arrives later and cover comes and goes throught the winter. The recent cold snap which came down from the Arctic brought a fall of dry powder snow with frosts that persisted for nearly a week. Ideal conditions to get my camea trap set up. My local boar badger decided to stay at home. However the pine martens remained active unerringly homing in on handfulls of peanuts cached under the snow. At least that was once they had taken the easy option of emptying the squirrel feeders in the garden.

The active lidar beam of the Cognisys Sabre trigger makes pin point focusing and triggering of the camera a breeze. Over four nights I got more than 50 usable pictures. A success rate of around 40%. Missed images were mostly down to heads turned away from camera or buried in the snow.