No more pine martens until the Spring!

Production team head for the hills

You must have read enough about pine martens by now. But! the photographer is relentless in his pursuit of wildlife imagery and Big Al is ever keen to shoulder massive loads of kit up the hill.  So here we go again.

Having re-housed Peanut the one eyed pine marten we now know that martens find our den boxes  attractive, secure and comfortable homes.  The photographer is convinced that any boxes set up in the woods at this time of year will be full of marten kits in May.

He's never short of ideas. Next project is a huge marten den in his Mother's roof space, it's interior done out like the inside of a hollow tree and 24 /7 filming of the squatters.  I digress..... back to this afternoon. We succeeded in hauling the 20 kg wooden box four metres up an ash tree clinging to a rock outcrop. You have to  assume that house hunting martens are seriously agile.

The box is securely lashed to the tree. Next we sprinkle peanuts around the base  and smear the trunk with organic peanut butter.... only the best will do. Trail cameras will monitor the action,  the tree is only metres from a game trail that's well used and trodden.

Now we wait. You know when the martens are in residence, they soon dump a pile of scat on the roof and you can see this with binoculars. More news in Spring 2018.