Most of the badger sightings mentioned here were made at the Strathspey Badger Hide. If you would like to go, click here for booking details.
Locations of sensitive nests and dens are kept deliberately vague for obvious
reasons. If you have a bona fide reason for more detail please let me know.
The diary will usually be updated daily. For comments on wider issues and for images and videos, please follow @AllanBoat on Twitter or Allan Bantick on Facebook or go to my YouTube channel.
Fri 1st to Sun 10th January 2021
Saturday 2nd. Checked the camera
at the golf club. No wildlife action so I removed it. Lots of
wildlife footprints in the snow all over the course including rabbit, hare,
roe deer and fox. Also lots of skiing tracks too which will not please
the green keeper. Decided that I would go back and reset the camera in
a new place to try to capture some winter activity while we still had snow.
Sunday 3rd. Set up the camera by the 7th fairway at the golf
club. AGC.
Tues 5th. Checked the camera at the golf club.
No wildlife and no skiers recorded. Took some snowy footage while I
was there and put together a movie for Facebook and Twitter that evening.
Weds 6th. Decided to enter the 100km in 30 days challenge, organised
by the RAF School of PT. Details of entry were a it sketchy but sent
some emails off to check.
Thurs 7th. Registered for the100km
challenge. Downloaded a fitness app onto my phone to help with
recording, which will be backed up on the GPS and hand-written into a table
each day to be sure. Paranoid or what! Anyhow, there's not much
conservation work going on right now; Covid 19 and snow and ice have
combined to make things quite difficult so we are more or less staying
indoors apart from dog walking for exercise and the odd trip to the village
shop. We get our main shopping online with Tesco.
Mon 11th to Sun
17th Jan 2021.
Very little to report this week. We were basically
keeping our heads down due to lock-down and feeding the birds. The
100km challenge is going well but every inch of the 45 km walked up to
Saturday was covered by trudging through snow and ice which made it much
more of a challenge than expected. Lots of animal tracks in the snow,
mostly roe deer and rabbits but two days on a row there were unmistakable
tracks of a fox determinedly heading in a straight line, as they do.
On Saturday I removed the trail cam from the golf club; the only footage
taken was of roe deer wandering around in the snow and fog, none of which
was worth keeping.
Mon 18th to Sun 24th Jan 2021
Snow was very much
the order of the day throughout the week, making practical conservation
difficult and my walking challenge really challenging. One significant
event was my decision to step down from the Board of Trustees of Scottish
Badgers. The organisation is doing a terrific job and I'm proud to
have played a part but I am tired and strongly wish to retire and simply do
things that take my fancy. Since leaving school in 1957 I have been
engaged in public service of one kind or another without a break so I'm due
timek in which to just sleep, chill, play golf, take photographs and make
movies, as it suits me. On a practical wildlife front, the dogs and I
found the remains of a recently kill woodcock in the woods which brought me
to wonder how our badgers were faring. They have not had to suffer a winter
like this one for many years and we might find the family has shrunk
somewhat when we next go to watch them. On that subject, I had
intended to set up one of the new trail cameras at the main sett but heavy
snow that day meant the B970 was impassable so the idea was shelved.
Instead I took videos of robins and the dogs in the snow and posted them
online. The Guyana movie had really begun to take shape by the end of
the week with just the selection of images from the last two phases of the
trip to complete before getting down to the editing and the music.
Even so, the job is unlikely to be finished for at least another two weeks.
Next in line are movies from our trips to Ecuador and Zambia. Looking
ahead to future trips, I had my first Covid 19 vaccination on Fri 22nd Jan
which was marvelous. I just hope Heather's name comes up soon for her
first one. Also on Friday I attended a scoping meeting for a proposed
new Bat Conservation Group in the Cairngorms. I managed to avoid going
on the committee but others volunteered so it will probably happen which
will be really good. I also took steps that day to express support for
a new consultation project for the possible reintroduction of lynx to
Scotland. The consultation is being organised by Vincent Wildlife
Trust, Scotland Big Picture and Trees For Life who have a much more credible
plan than the nutcases who had previously tried to force the lynx issue
without making any attempt to involve either the public or those who would
be most affected by having lynx in their district. Watch this space.