We live in an area not particularly known for its mammals but we’re discovering that in fact its quite a brilliant place for them!

The trail camera is such a helpful device for those wishing to find animals that are almost always far better at seeing you before you see them. That’s not to say that we don’t see mammals, there’s Weasel that appears just in front of the house from time to time, Persian Squirrels are resident in the oak trees and before we fenced the garden Wild Boar would frequently wander through.

However a trail camera placed 800 metres down the valley from the house has given us an amazing insight to what is really here. Last autumn the villages here lost a few goats to Wolves and we did hear them a couple of times but the trail camera revealed a Wolf going up and down from the forest below (and other trail cameras I have down in the wooded valley showed Wolves regularly too, sometimes one, sometimes two. This Wolf didn’t like the camera much and turned round and went back up towards us. A few days later the same Wolf came past and managed to pluck up the courage to go through… A much bigger surprise in the last couple of months has been a fabulous Caracal. He’s been walking past the camera perhaps once every ten days or so, usually only uphill (towards us!) obviously taking a different route down into the shelter of the forest. As you’ll see, unlike the Wolf, he’s much more camera friendly! Of course there’s numerous Wild Boar going past the camera as well as Hedgehogs, Badgers, Beech Martens, Foxes and the occasional Wild Cat too. The latter always seem to be moving too quickly to get decent shots of them! We’ll bring you more from the trap cameras soon!