Top 5 trail camera captures - Foxes
This week at NatureSpy we have been gathering up our favourite clips of foxes captured across all the projects we work with.
Covering eight years of camera trapping across much of the UK and abroad, we've seen a lot of beautiful, interesting and funny behaviour from these charismatic animals. From this pool of videos we've compiled a top five that we hope you enjoy viewing!
1. This year we've been working with Kerry Metcalfe supporting her research into the impacts of human activity on badger populations in the Dalby Forest - an area we know extremely well through our work on the Yorkshire Pine Marten Project. Though badgers were the principal target, it didn't stop the foxes stealing some limelight.
The location is one of the active sets that was monitored and it was frequently visited by curious foxes. In a few clips from the same location she also captured great footage of overconfident foxes being quickly seen off by the resident badgers! You can read more about the research here.
2. This clip is a very nostalgic one for the team at NatureSpy, being captured on one of our first trail cameras back in 2012! Looking back its remarkable to see how far trail cameras have come over the last 10 years, especially in terms of video quality but also with other invaluable features such as audio recording, trigger speeds and long battery life. Despite its age, this clip demonstrates the joy of using trail cameras, allowing us to glimpse at the fascinating and, often, funny behaviour of the animals we share our landscape with.
3. This clip was recorded through our partnership with The Observatory of Wild Carnivores (OCS). The group records and studies the behaviour of large carnivores in the east of France to help conservation efforts for these populations - with a particular focus on lynx and wolf. This fox was picked up across a few locations on the same morning and the weather made for some very photogenic records! This small cave was actually often frequented by an impressive lynx which would scent-mark at the location (watch that video here). You can read more about the project in France here.
4. This clip comes from our partnership with Bioterra and shows a fox using one of Croatia's newer green bridges. Crossing over a busy motorway below, these huge structures offer safe and easy passage for animals in nature-rich areas that would otherwise be separated by the recent road development. Camera traps are ideal for this deployment because they allow the team to easily collect data on what species are using the bridge, which is essential to evaluating their effectiveness in conserving local populations. You can read more about our work with Bioterra here.
5. Finally we have one of our more entertaining clips which was recorded up in the Highlands of Scotland at the Alladale Wilderness Reserve. The spot was baited with tinned fish as part of monitoring for otters in the area and the strong odour attracted a few visitors including this somewhat apprehensive individual. The reserve is an amazing place and NatureSpy have worked with the team there to support their species inventory surveys, which seek to determine what species are present and how they are distributed across the estate's 23,000 acres. You can learn more about the project here and you can see some of their other amazing captures here.
Four of the five clips this article were recorded using the 2018 Browning Recon Force Advantage. This camera is a stalwart in the Browning range and its durability and quality has been invaluable for research projects around the word. Its 2020 replacement, the Recon Force Edge, builds on its success with improvements in picture quality and speed, and the more recent 2022 Recon Force Elite HP5 continues this trend, offering the best night time video quality we've ever seen, as well as increased sensitivity and a wider FOV.
To learn more about the projects we work with and support, check out our project pages.
