by Ed Snell – Project Officer

Over the summer months we’ve been continuing our camera trap surveys in search of pine martens in forests throughout the North York Moors, catching a glimpse into the lives of the wildlife that call these forest home in the process. We now have up to 60 cameras on the ground in Yorkshire at any one time, capturing thousands of wildlife records every month.

The two videos below show some camera trap highlights from the summer months.

In order of appearance we have badgers, foxes, stoats, roe deer and red deer. We don’t often capture daylight clips of badgers, so they’ve taken the spotlight in this video compilation. It’s great to see them exploring our camera sites – they’re partial to some of the bait we put out!

In order of appearance we have goshawks, buzzards, tawny owls, great spotted woodpeckers and a woodcock. Another daylight-clip first for us in this video is the tawny owl. We very occasionally hear them in the daytime when we’re setting up or collecting cameras, but this is the first time we’ve had one visit in daylight. We’ve been seeing lots of buzzard activity on the cameras and you’ll notice there’s a buzzard chick in this video that the parents are caring for on the forest floor (turn your volume up to hear the cheeps!).

Summertime is always great for seeing the wide-ranging wildlife of the area taking advantage of the good weather! On our summer travels around the forests we’ve been seeing an influx of painted lady butterflies along with lots of peacock butterflies, red admirals and even a silver-washed fritillary on the edge of Langdale Forest (that’s far north for one of those!). The forest edges make fascinating habitats for all kinds of insects, small mammals, plants and fungi.