On the news here there was an interesting piece about a large cat, Beast of Bodmin style, which had been filmed in Eastern Slovakia, just 15 miles from where I live, close to the town of Bardejov. The attached photograph is a still from the video shown on the news site – http://www.noviny.sk/c/slovensko/nezname-zviera-sa-objavilo-nedaleko-bardejova-podla-odbornikov-ide-o-selmu. Experts have […]

My favourite day of the week is probably Sunday because it means I can sit in my garden and just listen to birdsong without having constant background noise from chainsaws, circular saws, trimmers and other equipment as there is a no-noise policy here one day per week. We have an extremely wide range of wildlife […]

This weekend was supposed to be very wet and we almost didn’t go to the house. France and Germany have both had floods and we were expecting the same. However, despite the occasional short, hard downpour, it was scorching hot. My garden is completely overgrown but this week I discovered that the engine of my […]

Yesterday evening while doing our usual walk along the disused bush road up in the hills outside the village, we encountered a badger (Meles meles) acting very strangely. For a start, this was the first badger I’ve seen here in 18 years (I regularly catch them on game camera, usually licking it, but never encounter […]

Probably, out of all my hobbies and interests, cataloguing the creatures which live around my house ranks the highest. As a kid I used to keep a daily diary of what birds and animals I’d seen and often draw one of them. Now I have cameras and trailcams but the principle is still the same. […]

I was stunned to see this harrier flying around while out walking behind the house. I’ve never seen one here before. I’m unsure whether it’s a Montagu’s Harrier (Circus pygargus) or a Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) as it has identifying marks which associate (and refute) it with both. The black above-wing line makes me lean […]

Sometimes I get footage on my trailcam that I just can’t easily identify. On this occasion, I can definitely say it’s an eye – but to which creature does it belong? Due to its location it won’t be anything domesticated, and it’s definitely a predator of some description. The game camera was fastened to a […]

    I’ve always had problems trying to film Pine and Beech Martens because they can detect the Infrared from the trailcam. This young one was just plain curious and decided to check out the strange contraption. It’s a Beech (or Stone) Marten, an almost identical cousin of the Pine Marten. They’re all called kuna […]

I knew there were Eurasian Lynx up in the heavily forested hills surrounding the village but I didn’t expect to find such an immense one wandering around a few hundred metres behind my house. I filmed it in the little wooded gully where I captured badger, pine marten, red squirrel, boar and red deer on […]