Heron fishing in Newport, Pembrokeshire

Here's a heron I videoed whilst on a walk yesterday.

(More hedgehogs soon - the trail camera battery takes an AGE to re-charge!)

Hedgehogs stills from Tuesday night

After what I was saying yesterday, I decided last night that conditions might be right for capturing some stills using the trail camera. I put food out at one end of the lowest slate step into the back garden and the camera at the other. I'm sure the wet weather helped combat white out too! And these are the photos that resulted - only a handful, mind you, before the battery ran out (again!).

(Times removed from photos because the time setting on the camera was wrong!)

Monday night's hedgehog

Apologies if this blog has been a little video-heavy recently. In previous years I liked to vary the posts some more, so sometimes we had photos, sometimes videos, and sometimes slideshows. Alas, I can't seem to get decent stills from my trail camera at the moment. I find that the infrared is just bouncing back and whiting out the whole picture. Some of you will remember I took various measure to combat this in the past in the previous location by laying down black non-reflective rubber mats on the ground, taping up the LEDs on the camera, etc. Well, I've used the tape on the camera again, but the mats would seem a little incongruous here, I feel. Still, here's a colour photo I snapped last night. I don't like to do too many of these because of having to use the flash. I don't think the hedgehogs get too spooked by the flash, but nevertheless I prefer not to use it.

Hedgehogs and other animals on the bottom step

Last night I put a bowl of food on the bottom slate step leading into the lower garden, partly to see if the hedgehogs were willing to roam around the garden a bit more and not just stay in the bottom left corner by the compost heap, and partly because I thought the video would be better with the slate beneath them rather than grass and without foliage causing infrared light bounce-back to the camera.

Come the morning a number of birds also make an appearance, as does Elsa.

Hedgehogs courting

You have to feel sorry for the female hedgehog... the male's idea of "foreplay" is hardly the most romantic!

Hedgehogs videoed in our garden in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on Friday night, 1 July 2011.