September 2016: Photo of the Month

"Stray light over Red Fox" by Matthew Cattell

A lot of good images shared this past month, and a lot of fun ones too... but 1 in particular caught my eye.

This photo of Flo the fox, taken by Matt Cattell, has a lot of atmosphere to it. It is difficult to catch Flo at the best of times, as she is constantly on the move, but not only has Matt done this he has also managed to get some eye contact. What really stands out though is the lighting. Beautiful dappled light on her body really adds something to the image, and the shadows in the background really make Flo stand out. Nice one Matt!

Matt's image will be in our coffee shop gallery next year, alongside the other months picks, and be in with the chance of winning a photo day here at the Centre.

"Polecats" by Routemaster on Twitter

This is  a great fun photo that was posted to our twitter feed. Oriel, our female polecat, almost looking pleadingly at the camera to help here out with her 6 boisterous kits... all seen behind her.

"Badger" by Rosalind Gray

Another fun one from flickr... Toby, with out a care in the world, having an afternoon scratch in the sun.

'Wild Roe Deer" by Ken Noble

And take a look at this photo by Ken! Ken is a local bird watcher, who keeps a tab on all the sightings on our nature reserve. He sent me in this great photo of a wild Roe buck who we frequently see out there with a doe.

Look forwards to seeing more photos of the coming month.

Polecat Update

Do you remember these?.. Lots of polecat babies bred by Cassie and Billy. I haven't got any recent photos, as they are now preparing for collection by the breeding group, but along with Whitstable and Oriel's youngsters we have 12 kits ready to move on to pastures new.

All our kits are now off-display, so you can no longer see them if you visit the Centre. But you can still see our adult polecats.

Oriel, above, is very much enjoying her life now with out the kitts around. She if  make the keepers lives easier too, with no babies to protect she is a lot less bitey!

Whitstable is as laid back as ever, but it won't be long now until we introduce him back in to our main enclosure with Oriel. They can the settle over the winter, before hopefully having more kitts next season.

Billy and Cassie, well... Just Cassie really... is a bit more temperamental. We will have to introduce them together a little bit slower, but they should both be on display by October half term.

Harvest Mice on Countryfile

Our harvest mice have been very successful this year, and so we have been able to continue our releases out on to our nature reserve. Having spotted more frequent activity on my morning walks with Bess around the boardwalk area, we decided to release this years mice a little further in to the reserve to encourage the spread throughout our land and hopefully connect up with previous litters we have released. 

Our releases have been such a success that they even caught the eye of the Countryfile team. They have filmed a piece on the work the Surrey Wildlife Trust do with monitoring harvest mice in the wild, but unfortunately were unable to find any mice in the lead up to filming. Therefore they sent Anita Rani to see us to actually see a mouse, and talk about the work we do here.

We filmed a short sequence on how we converted 26 acres of redundant farmland in to a nature reserve of a mosaic of habitats, and how introducing our harvest mice is not only good for bio-diversity but also as a indicator species for the habitat itself and how successful it is for wildlife.

All good news of course, and means one of our harvest mice gets to be a TV star!... (but not Barry, sorry Steve).

Of all the mice we release, only a small percentage will survive, but that is what is expected with a survival rate in the wild of only around 5% Unfortunately for the harvest mouse, one of their main roles is to be at the lower end of the food chain... but it is there presence, along with other mice and voles, that attracts in the stoats, weasels, barn owls, kestrels and many other predators that we see on our reserve.

If you want to see our mice on Countryfile, I believe it will be aired on the 2nd of October, but will let you know if that changes.