We managed to get one of the two new cameras up and working today. It is a fixed camera that is positioned to look at where the Badgers come out to feed. As you see the Badgers come into view the sett entrance is just a matter of inches away. It has taken a couple of days to run the wires and fit the camera and other parts needed to get it working. The wires have to run in the trees and all along the Badger runs, that they use to get to one sett entrance to another. It has to be got into the roof space of the farm house, then about forty feet in the loft before being run to the ground floor of the house, out of site. Not a job I particularly like. To make matters worse the runs of sett are through bramble. I finish up being scratch from head to toe. The picture will probably need adjusting once I see how it looks tonight. I will be showing it on different cameras, including the Swallow camera. It should be a good position as often the Badgers use the spot it is positioned on, to play and socialise, the trees hide that area from the main camera. Let me know what you think.
As long as the piece of equipment I have works, I will try tomorrow to fit another camera to the rear of the entrance. The piece of equipment hopefully will allow me to put two signals over one wire, so two cameras should work. The manufacturers reckon it will, let hope they are right as the equipment is a few hundred pounds. I will be jumping about if it doesn’t. If it does work we should be able to see more of the Badgers. I am also going to put molasses onto the jump. I should think that they will like the taste, if they do it will keep them out longer.
I have been watching the new camera as I am writing the Diary, and can see what needs doing to make it better. For the next few days you may see that I have been trying different angles and height,
Anjela asked about the Rats around the lake. The Rats ate a lot of the poison, and as they had not eaten any for a couple of days, I moved the cage to the area of camera one. As much as I did not want to put the poison down in that area, I really had little option. I tried various other ways of getting rid of them, that were a waste of time. There were to many large Rats to allow them to keep breeding, without me doing any thing about it. They started to take the poison today. It will take a good while to clear the area. I will have to start checking two or three times a day to make sure no animals or birds eat any of them. I wanted to put the cage by the Bird feeders around the lake, that will have to wait until I can get my hands on a new cage, or the one I have got is able to be put there. To make sure that the Birds do not eat the poison I manage to get an old Magpie cage trap. Inside of that I put a petrol can with holes at each end. The Rats need to go into the cage and then into the can to get the poison. I have also covered the cage up with a piece of plastic with room at the bottom for the Rats to go under.
There are a few breaks in the clouds tonight, not enough t put the telescope on, but I maybe able to try the piece of equipment that was sent to me from the US.
Elsie, didn’t get the photos.