Beth here from Zero Fox Given, Imperial College London.
We’ve had a mammal-packed few months with lots of opportunities to see the wonderful wildlife at Imperial’s Silwood Park Campus, Berkshire. We’ve found some great evidence in both the mud and snow, so we’ve been able to indulge in a little snow-tracking:
Red fox track in the snow
Snow-tracking is super fun until the rabbits decide to mess with you…
Badger print in the mud
Our campus is also great for opportunistic sightings, with roe deer and muntjac seemingly everywhere.
Male roe deer in velvet sunning himself whilst chomping some grass
Two lovely roe deer outside our accommodation early one morning
Did I catch this muntjac in the middle of something? He looks suspicious…
We’ve been especially loving setting up camera traps around campus and have been trying to tempt mustelids to some of the camera traps by the lake with bait, as American mink have been seen previously. We’ve had no luck on that front so far but have captured many other great videos of the animals around campus, which has provided our only live sightings of badgers. I personally did try to scout out a potential badger sett in the woods on our campus one evening and got lost for a while – turns out it’s really easy to get lost in the woods in the dark (obviously) – I ‘almost’ had to call security to ask them to come and find me, which would have been mortifying.
So, I’ve saved the best until last…
We have THREE adorable fox cubs frolicking around campus at the moment! Talk about the irony of calling our team ‘Zero Fox Given’!
Fox Cub by Alex Flynn-Carroll
Fox Cub by Alex Flynn-Carroll
Overall, we are having a really fun time participating in the University Mammal Challenge! I just wanted to finish by sharing one of the laughs that Microsoft Word has provided me whilst writing this blog:
Alt text: “A cow is standing in the dirt”
Thanks for reading!
Beth
