Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 1 hour ago
Snow, freezing temperatures, and a test of camera-trapping patience define this wild winter outing as the DSLR setup and trail cams are checked after a night in bitter conditions. What starts with concern about frozen batteries and condensation turns into a careful recovery mission, with the gear still standing, the flashes firing, and the cameras revealing a mix of fox, badger, jackal, ducks, wild boar, and even a wildcat.

Back at the canal and meadow, the trail cameras pick up far more than the DSLR, including repeated fox movement, tentative jackal activity, and a strong wild boar pass right through the scene. The DSLR trap struggles a little in the cold and seems to trigger less reliably, but it still captures a memorable frame of the boar and the tail end of a fox crossing the platform. It is a practical, hands-on field update for anyone interested in wildlife photography, trail camera footage, DSLR camera traps, and winter animal tracking.

Created for viewers searching for trail cam wildlife, DSLR camera trapping, fox and jackal footage, wild boar encounters, and winter nature recording. It also fits searches for camera trap setup, freezing-weather photography, and real-world wildlife monitoring in snow.

Category

🏖
Travel
Transcript
00:00So hello my friends, good morning. It is a very snowy Sunday morning and I've actually been a little bit
00:10anxious about my camera that I've left out in this weather. I'm fully expecting that the battery has died and
00:20the camera has frozen up and it's all covered in snow and it will have recorded absolutely nothing.
00:26But it would be fantastic if it had recorded something. I shall have a think as well about whether I'm
00:31going to leave it out tonight when the temperature is due to drop to minus 16. I'm a little bit
00:39worried that all the internals and everything would freeze altogether and maybe damage the camera. So I shall have to
00:47think carefully about that one.
00:52We shall see. I'm on my way down there now so I shall catch up with you when I'm there.
01:10The one thing that should be easier because of the snowfall is actually spotting animal tracks. So I should be
01:19able to actually quite easily see if any animals have been around.
01:29Oh boy, it's absolutely beautiful.
01:50Okay, so the camera is still there. You can see it all covered in snow.
01:57And the flashes too. Let's see. Let's check on the trail cam that I set up overlooking the whole scene.
02:08Have a look at that one first and see if it recorded anything.
02:12I can see no animal tracks. I can see no animal tracks at all in the snow here.
02:19And the canal hasn't frozen over. So let's just check this one out. Looks like he's wearing a hat.
02:49The batteries are still fine on it.
02:53And it's recorded on the Friday night. I think there's a couple of shots there with a badger. Could be
03:03something else. It was quite far off in the frame for me to tell exactly what it was.
03:14On last night, the snowy night, I think it was just the snow that triggered it. So it's recorded one
03:21night scene of snow.
03:23That I can't tell if there's anything on it. So I'm guessing it was just the snow that set it
03:29off.
03:30And here at the camera trap, you can see it's all covered in snow.
03:48The trail cam, the other trail cam over there, also covered in snow.
03:55And I'm guessing the other one here, I can see it over the bushes there, also covered in snow.
04:04So let me just put this stuff down and I'll wade into the water to see what's happened. So bear
04:14with me.
04:38I'll see you next time.
04:40Bye.
04:42Bye.
04:45Bye.
04:51Bye.
04:52Bye.
05:03Bye.
05:03Peter.
05:04I'm happy.
05:06The battery has survived.
05:10It didn't record anything at all overnight.
05:13But it did record this morning some ducks on the canal.
05:22And the flashes are firing two still, which is incredible.
05:28so I'm thinking what I might do is just swap out the batteries on the flash heads because
05:34those are the weakest link and leave it out for tonight as well and see what happens it's all
05:41working I just want to see what's been recorded on this camera as well on the trail cam to see
05:47if anything did come but because the sensor was covered or malfunctioned or whatever it
05:55might not have been recorded so I just want to check the trail cam as well and then I'll switch
06:00out
06:00the batteries or something looks like the jackal did come along but that thing hasn't triggered
06:09probably because I set the sensitivity of the trigger too low because I was paired with the wind
06:17yesterday and also with the predicted snowfall that it would just be triggering with the snow and
06:22the branch is moving so I'm going to increase the sensitivity tonight and hopefully it'll catch
06:30something let me just check on the other one so that's where we're firing lastly and I should leave it
06:56for one more night
07:00so
07:12so
08:53Moment of truth.
08:55Now, being accompanied by the stray dog that lives down by the harbour.
09:04That's what happens when you feed them.
09:07They follow you everywhere.
09:10So what I thought I would do is that the camera looks like it's still there.
09:15And I thought I'd check on this trail camera first.
09:18So let me just set up here a second, because I've got my hands full.
09:24This is the camera that's got the overall view of the meadow, and it's absolutely frozen solid.
09:33The badger, or whatever it was, I think, that I recorded on the Friday night when it hadn't snowed yet.
09:43You can see the actual camera itself is frozen solid.
09:51And let's get over to the other cameras.
10:02There's a few prints around, tracks, but that could well be the dogs again.
10:12Okay, let me set this camera up so that you can have a view of me recovering my gear.
10:22The ice here is almost strong enough to hold me.
10:32The ice here is almost strong enough to hold me.
10:35Let's take a look at this camera.
10:46Amazingly, it's still firing.
10:50So, okay, let me put this camera down, and I'll recover it.
11:26So, this one is absolutely frozen solid.
11:28The lens is clean though.
11:31I think so.
11:31I'll have to wait until that defrosts.
11:35So, I'll get everything back to the car, and let it defrost, and have a look then.
11:44So, I shall catch up with you in a while, once everything is unfrozen.
11:48See you in a bit.
11:52Okay, so I'm back in the warmth of my room at the hotel,
11:56and I've downloaded all the footage from the trail cameras and the DSLR.
12:05The trail camera that was at the top of the meadow recorded a badger and a fox twice.
12:14The trail cameras to the left and the right of the DSLR recorded comings and goings of fox, a couple
12:25of recordings of a jackal that was very tentative this time.
12:31He came up out to the platform, didn't cross, had a sniff around the air, and then turned back again.
12:40And then also a wild boar coming in a different direction this time from the location of one of the
12:47cameras, the trail cameras which recorded it really well.
12:50And then it came through right in front of the DSLR, which snapped a great shot of it, and then
12:56it carried on going.
12:58The DSLR itself only triggered a couple of times, once for the wild boar, and again it only got a
13:06single shot of that.
13:08And I don't know quite what's going on with the setup, because I've got it set to trigger, it does
13:14three bursts of five shots, supposedly.
13:19And it only recorded one picture, and it happened to get the boar on that one shot just coming into
13:26frame.
13:28And then it's got the tail end of a fox running away across the platform.
13:34So I don't know why it's not triggering, I'll break it all down again, once it's acclimated to the warmth
13:42here,
13:43because bringing it in from the cold, all this equipment has a bit of condensation on it, so I don't
13:49want to damage it.
13:50So I'll let it dry out, recharge all the batteries.
13:54I'm going to reset it up in here and make sure all the settings are working.
13:59And then I'm going to put it back out in the field for the next few nights and see if
14:04I get lucky this time.
14:07I don't know if it was the cold or with the changes in temperature that it wasn't working, I'm not
14:12sure.
14:13Still, I got a decent shot of the wild boar, which I'm happy with.
14:17And hopefully in the next few nights we'll get some fox and jackal as well, maybe even badger.
14:23So yeah, stay tuned and hopefully there'll be more. See you in a bit.
14:30Okay, so I'm back at the canal and here we go again.
14:39Slightly different setup this time, so hopefully, fingers crossed, this time you'll be lucky.
15:00I'll see you in a bit.
15:01I'll see you in a bit.
15:16I'll see you in a bit.
15:28So this time I think I might have dialed it in a little bit better than the previous time.
15:35So what we have I'll show you is this is the log from the fox's perspective and the camera is
15:45just there.
15:46First flash plus the trigger just there.
15:51And then to the right is the other flash just there and the trail cam.
16:00And then over to the left here in the bushes just there.
16:11So this time hopefully it'll all go to plan.
16:18Foxy or Jackal will run across, dive across, whatever, and I shall get my picture.
16:28With any luck we shall see.
16:32So fingers crossed I'll come back in a couple of days and hopefully my kit will still be in one
16:39piece.
16:40And we'll see what we got if anything.
16:42So I shall catch up with you again in a few days.
16:46Bye for now.
16:48So hello again.
16:50Good morning.
16:52It's the day three.
16:54But I've left the camera out in freezing conditions.
16:59And I went and recovered it.
17:01I thought I'd spare you watching all the b-roll of me wading into the water.
17:05And I had a quick look on the back of the camera.
17:09And it seems that I got hundreds of shots of a pack of stray dogs.
17:17Which kept setting the camera off.
17:19And I think they drained the batteries on the flash.
17:24The only picture of wild animal that I did see was a wild cat.
17:28But I'll have a more careful look through the other ones when I get back.
17:33And yeah.
17:34So it goes to show you that the trail cams were out on their own for a few nights.
17:41And they picked up so many different animals.
17:45And as soon as I put the DSLR out nothing to be seen.
17:50But that's the way it goes.
17:53So anyway I'll be back in a couple of weeks from my shoot.
17:57And I shall try again.
17:59So in the meantime thank you so much for watching and following along.
18:05And hopefully in a couple of weeks I shall see you again.
18:09Bye for now.
18:10Bye.
18:13Bye for now.
18:13Bye.
18:28Bye.
18:32Bye.
18:33Bye.
Comments

Recommended