I found this picture on the Internet which illustrates it quite well…..

On the left is the wood mouse and on the right, the house mouse.

The name ‘house mouse’ is a little misleading. They do sometimes come inot houses in the winter, but, as this extract from the Arkive website explains, they are found all over….

‘As a commensal species, the house mouse lives in close association with humans.In addition to houses, it has been found in a range of urban situations, including shops, mills, warehouses, factories, coal mines and even cold stores. In rural areas it occurs in farm buildings, rubbish tips, piggeries, poultry houses, granaries and open fields. They nest in woodpiles, beneath floors, behind rafters and in other concealed locations. In the wild state, the house mouse lives in crevices in rocks or in underground burrows.’

Here is a clip I took of the house mouse….

and one of a wood mouse….

TRY RUNNING BOTH OF THESE CLIPS AT THE SAME TIME FOR COMPARISON!
To me, it is quite obvious… I watch them all the time… keep watching my cams… you can now see wood mouse, house mouse, vole and shrew!

Firstly, I have quite a big garden and I have lots of different feeding stations… from one end to the other! I started by getting my small hide out. It was a beautiful (if not rather chilly) morning and I set up below the sieve feeders as the early morning sunlight was on them and there are usually a lot of visitors. I sat there for about half an hour and managed one blue tit! I was freezing, so clambered out of the hide and thought I would wander down the other end of the garden. I took the hide with me… but the birds were quite suspicious of it. I should have put it out in the week really, so they could get used to it. Ironically, they were much more willing to come to the feeders with me standing in full view on the patio! In fact, one great tit happily fed on the feeder about 2 metres away!

The most wonderful experience I had today was with my beautiful long tailed tit. Their distinctive chirrupping call alerted me to their presence and they flitted into view, like aerial acrobats, almost magically appearing on one branch, disappearing and appearing somewhere else…. a night mare to photograph! Just as you get them in view and go to press the shutter, they are gone. I had lots of bare branch shots, or just a tail. Again, they were happy to come to the log feeder whilst I stood in full view on the patio! I must admit, I think they are one of my favourite garden birds and I was pleased with the shots I managed to get of them today.

My regulars performed well.. my robins, the goldfinches and dunnocks…

 Harder to get good views and shots of today were my nuthatch, the house sparrows and the great spotted woodpecker. The coal tit was very elusive and I only managed one, rather poor back shot. The only species that did not turn up today was the bullfinch. Last week I got some nice shots of a male, but did not see them at  all today.

My images can be seen on my BirdWatch Flickr set A  slideshow can be seen on my website HERE  If you have tried this challenge either today or tomorrow, email me the link to you photos in a Flickr set and I will put them on my website, along with mine. I really enjoyed spending a day with my camera on my favourite subjects… the wildlife in my own patch!!

The first box I adapted is a HandyKam nestbox. I want to get a really close-up, low angle view inside, so have added a section onto the side of the box so I could get a camera mounted low and close to the nest. I have lined the nest box with bark too, so give a more natural look. I am really pleased with the image I got from the cam, so mounted the box back up on a tree in the same position where I have had success for the last two years.

The second box I have adapted is actually a sparrow terrace. It was a prototype that was sent to me by Ark Wildlife. As there was lots of space, I took an internal wall out, moved it along to create a slightly larger nesting chamber and a smaller chamber for the camera. Again, I have lined the box and set the camera low down, close to the nest.  I have put this box up on a tree further up the garden, in a new position.

I have another three cameras mounted in nest boxes and another three to go up that aren’t quite finished yet. I will then have to keep my fingers crossed that they are occupied. If they are, then I hope to live stream some great intimate views of the families being raised!

The company have also sent me some products to trial in my garden and with my Wildlife Club. These included some of their feeders and a selection of food…..

These food come in great little pouches, either with a zip-close top…

… or this really handy spout…

This makes it much easier to fill up a feeder. I filled the feeder I had been sent with the 5 in 1 Bird seed pack…

I decided to put this feeder up on a tree, right next to the hedge, quite far up my garden, above the waterhole cam. This means that,I can alternate between this feeder and the waterhole cam on my live stream, using the same cable. As the ports on this Peckish feeder are plastic, I decided to put it inside a spare squirrel cage I had. I mounted the cam onto the tree, facing the ports and the tray. You will be able to see it on my live streams:

The second feeder is a larger version, with more ports. I filled this one with the ‘Winter Warmer’ seed mix and hung it from my Magnolia tree. It is on quite a long chain, so hopefully the squirrel won’t be tempted!

I think this is a really attractive feeder and the great thing is that the lower ports can be rotated so, instead of being open, they have a grid making the feeder suitable for nyger seed. The top ports can be switched for the same… they simply un-clip and you can clip in the alternate style; a great idea! These photos of the feeders were all taken with the new Lumix.

A big thanks to ‘Peckish’. The kids at school will be delighted with their feeder and food too… we will set it up in the grounds tomorrow.

Next weekend is the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, where they everyone is asked to make a note of the bird species they see in their garden, or local park, for just one hour. Results are the submitted to the RSPB. The results help build up a picture of the bird population in the UK. Over 600,000 of us took part in Big Garden Birdwatch 2011 and counted over 10 million birds. The RSPB website summarises the results from last year’s birdwatch.

House sparrows retained top spot for the eight year running, with an average of four seen per garden.

Starlings and blackbirds swapped positions on the 2011 leader board, with starlings now at number two and blackbirds at number three.

Starling sightings increased by a quarter since 2010, but their numbers are still down from when Big Garden Birdwatch began in 1979.

I always take part, but this year, I wanted to do something a little different and also use my live cams as well in some way. One of my Twitter followers, Paul, suggested I could use my live cams and get people to tweet about what they had seen and that got me thinking! I have created a page on my website about what I plan to do next weekend and how you can get involved too.

For more details, take a look at this page on my website.

Basically, I am going to have two challenges:

On Saturday, I will do my hour birdwatch and log all the species I see and publish these on my website. I am also going to attempt to get a decent photograph of every species that visits my garden. I will upload all of these into a ‘Garden Birdwatch 2012′ set on my Flickr account. If you would like to do the same, then upload your photos into a set on your Flickr account and email me the link. I can then put a slideshow of your photos on my website. It would be good to share them in this way and interesting to see what different species others have seen.

On the Sunday, my live cameras will be focused on the bird feeders. Over the hour between 11am and midday, I am asking people to join me watching my live cams and we’ll see how many different species we can spot on the cams. I will attempt to screen capture them all! We can use twitter to log our results using the hashtag symbol;  #WKcambirdwatch

It would be great to share this event next weekend with you and I look forward to seeing what we can see. This weekend I have had three bullfinches returning to the garden and the blackcap is still around. It would be great to get him on my count!

]]> http://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/wildlifekate-big-garden-cam-birdwatch/feed/ 1 wildlifekate WKBigGardenBirdwatch http://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/i-set-up-a-feeding-station-nest-box-camera-system-for-an-infants-school/ http://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/i-set-up-a-feeding-station-nest-box-camera-system-for-an-infants-school/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:54:45 +0000 wildlifekate http://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/?p=4243 ]]> I undertake all sorts of consultancy work, but I must admit, the kind of work I did today is one of my favourites! As a qualified teacher, the great advantage for schools to get me in to set up feeding stations and camera nest boxes, is that I can also take groups of children, teach and take an assembly! The school that I worked at today school had raised some funds and were keen to have a nest box camera. They chose one from my shop… the side nest box that I had success with last year with a family of great tits. They liked the idea of the side-on view and on a visit I made to the school last week, I could see a potential tree for it.

They were also keen to get some bird feeders up in school so they could do the Big Schools’ Bird Watch and teach the children more about the wildlife that can be attracted into the school grounds. They had little idea about what to get and where to put it, so I organised the whole thing and stocked up on the budget they had given me!

I arrived at school with a car load;….. nest box and camera system, five bird feeders and a good range of food, hooks and chains to hang them, a ladder, all my tools and just about everything else I could lay my hands on that I thought I might need!

My morning started with assembly, where we looked at all the feeders I had bought and the different types of food. They already had a super display up using the resources from the RSPB, FREE to all schools who sign up for the School’s Bird Watch. I showed them the nest box and the camera inside. I was able to show them my website and we looked at all the pictures I took in my nest box last year, so they were able to see my great tit family growing up. There was much excitement and lots of questions.

The children returned to the classroom whist I started the task of putting up the nest box and wiring it all back into to school, through a classroom and to a lovely big TV in a little area just to the side of their school hall. It is going to be a fantastic place for the children to watch their nest box as it is in such an accessible area. Of course, today, it had chosen to pour with rain. Armed with drill, and screw driver, I eyed up the tree I had chosen. It was well positioned and had a nice flat area of trunk, perfect for the nest box. The other advantage was that it was a good climbing tree… I would be able to climb up to mount the box rather than relying on  a ladder. The children watched out the window as I expertly (of course!!) climbed up and mounted the box onto the trunk. I then ran the cable from the tree, across to a roof corner and then into school through a hole drilled in the wall. With the cable clipped along the wall, all the way back to the TV, it was a relief when I plugged it all in and we could clearly see the inside of the nest box! Phew!!!

Next came the feeders. Two of the classroom overlooked a small playground area and then a bank, full of trees and bushes… absolutely perfect for feeders. The classrooms would have an excellent view of the feeders and the surroundings suggested that there would be a variety of species likely to visit. I had chosen some Nature’s Feast feeders… trialled and tested in my own garden. The ‘Twister’ feeder is excellent as it feeds three different seeds at once. I filled it up with a group of children. We put black sunflower seeds, sunflower hearts and a mixed seed, with niger into the three compartments in this feeder.

Next, a different group of children filled the metal nut feeder. I am sure the squirrels will be down before long, so I chose a robust metal feeder .

We then had another group of children setting up a fat bar feeder and a fat ball feeder. I explained why it was important to remove the nets on the fat balls.

We hung all the feeders in a position that meant they could clearly be seen from the classrooms.

I had one more feeder to set up and that was for the reception classroom. They were on the other side of the school. I chose a Nature’s Feast sunflower heart one for them. I strung a wire down from a roof strut outside their classroom and they helped to fill the feeder up with me. I don’t think we will get such a variety on this feeder, but I am pretty confident that the children will get some visitors.

After lunch, I returned to the classroom and talked to the children a little bit more about the birds they might see and how they need to maintain their feeders both by filling them up and cleaning them. I took groups of children to the windows to see if we could see any birds yet. These feeders had only been up a couple of hours and the levels of excitement reached fever pitch as we  were delighted to see blue tits, great tits, coal tits, a flock of five long tailed tits, chaffinches, a dunnock and a blackbird! The children were so excited ( and so were the staff) as no one had expected it to be such a hit so quickly.

It is a highly rewarding experience to introduce children to the joys of wildlife watching and I am sure many will go home and set up feeders in their gardens if they haven’t already. I hope that this experience will foster an early fascination in wildlife… one that these children will take into adulthood… what job could be more rewarding than that??

Anyone who follows my blog would have known that today I was meeting with Katy Gaunt and Lucinda Costello, who are the Horticultural Exhibitor Managers for the RHS. They came up from London to meet me and discuss my plans for a WildlifeKate stand at Gardener’s World Live at the NEC in June.

I have been working on my plan for the last few weeks and I have been rather ambitious. I aim to recreate the ‘feel’ of my patch in a stand, showcasing some of my KreATivE projects and showing others how they can set up cams in and around the garden to help them learn more about the wildlife in their patch. I want my stand to sum up my motto, ‘Watch, Discover, Learn’ and have lots of ideas about how this could be achieved in a highly interactive, imaginative and attractive stand.

I showed Katy and Lucinda my plans and, thankfully, they LOVED my ideas and were as excited as me about the possibilities (if that is possible!)They have given me the thumbs up! They laid the show plan out on my sitting room floor and decided where my stand could go… at 8m x 9m, it is quite large. A wonderful spot was chosen, right in the middle of the ‘Gardening for Wildlife’ section of the show. I could not quite believe that I was being pencilled into this amazing show… me… with my own stand at a prestigious event such as this!

I want all of my followers to ‘share’ in my journey over the next 5 months… a journey that will involve lots of planning, discussions, excitement, discovery…. and sheer hard work. I will be needing help though. I have never done anything like this before. I have worked on stands, but never created one from scratch myself.  In the coming weeks, I will be appealing for help… so if you would like to be part of this journey, think you could offer help, support, supplies, sponsorship…. anything, then I am going to want to hear from you. I will be drawing up a list of the kinds of things I will be needing help with so keep an eye out on my website. It could be the chance for you to advertise your business on my stand as all those who help me will be recognised.

My mind is absolutely buzzing with ideas and I will be sharing some of these with you over the coming weeks… I’m not going to tell you everything of course… you will have to come and visit me at the show! Get it in your diaries… June 13th – 17th at Birmingham NEC. Get a train to Birmingham International and you can walk from the train!  Also, the Good Food Show is on at the same time! Bargain! Check out the show’s website at www.bbcgardenersworldlive.com

I found some interesting facts on the BTO website, which I thought others might be interested in too…….

The Blackcap has traditionally been viewed as a summer visitor to Britain but the Garden BirdWatch reporting rate now shows a distinct winter peak in the use of gardens, a pattern that reflects a remarkable evolutionary event.

As he was visiting the  sunflower heart  feeder, I moved the camera to try to capture him on my live cameras…. and here he is…

and then he visited the log feeder!….

I was also lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the sparrowhawk as she sent all my birds scattering! She landed high in the oak tree and was rather silhouetted, hence this rather poor picture. A stunning hunter and always great to see!

My live stream cameras should all be working OK now after the problems I have been having over the last few weeks. The provider has had to change servers, so I have been put on a temporary one for the time being. There are plans to change the way in which the cameras are live streamed very soon. This new method will further improve the quality of my live streams.

Lots of work was carried out on my nest boxes over the weekend too and I will be bringing some details about them over the coming weeks.

Here are a couple of shots from today….

Click to view slideshow.

and the clip from the Bushnell Trophy Cam….