Wild Nightlife on the Croft

The camera trap that my daughter bought me has been capturing some interesting fauna.

I set it out near the garden. We have fig trees and I thought that might attract the wild boar. We also have rats, attracted by the chicken food. But the rats have been dissapearing, so I guessed that there was a predator around. The Barn and Tawny owls capture them at night (we hear the whoosh and squeak as they attack the rats in the garden), but there are ground predators too:

My brother is a tiger, really...

Pretty sleek, eh?

Mrs Brock returns

That's from just five nights with the camera trap. The cat is big, but I guess it's a large domestic cat, not a wild cat. The fox is completely fearless: she or he has been out at times when I know the dogs were around too.

It's pretty wild at night at the Croft...

What are they? The 2015 Quiz

I saw these three over the Christmas holidays. I have almost no idea what they are, so that's the 2015 Quiz: tell me what they are.

This brightly coloured bug was in the bark and ivy of a willow tree near us. He appears to be wearing the Estelada - the Catalan national flag. The distinctive white spot on the tail must be an identifier, but I don’t know of what. He might be a  Fire Bug, Pyrrhocoris apterus. But then again he might not.

 

L'Estelada, en insecte?

I found this one inside the underground box that protects our water pipe and taps, on the edge of a mixed (holm oak and pine) woodland. My guess: Rana temporaria, the Common Frog. But s/he does not have the distinctive V shape (chevron) on her back.

Je suis le frog

I found this on the edge of the track above the house. Distinctively white droppings, with a spiral twist and a pointed end. According to "Animal Tracks and Signs" by Preben Bang and Preben Dahlstrom these are characteristic features of fox (Vulpes vulpes) droppings. So, maybe a fox?

 

The Swiss Army drops in