Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Martens At Midnight

by admin - 20:56 on 20 February 2012

It's a while since I've deployed the Bushnell to capture after-dark animal antics, so yesterday night was as good a time as any to catch up with stealthy visitors. The results were unexpected.

First to be caught in the infra-red beam was the usually uninterested Bess, who took far too close a look at the egg and peanut butter left out for Mrs Marten. Her curiosity was such that the egg was knocked off its log. I don't think she was trying to eat it; maybe her renal-friendly diet leaves her excited by unguarded protein.

Two hours later, not far short of midnight, the camera caught a pine marten investigating the low-level food situation before ascending The Nutella Tree in search of the sweeter stuff. It's always good to see a marten, but there was better to come – moments later a second one ambled into view.

Unfortunately I'd left the camera badly angled so the only proof of multiple martens was a tail dangling above an earth-bound compatriot. I was also unable to identify either of them. My first thought was Mrs Marten and one of her offspring, for the second visitor appeared much smaller. However, the Bushnell can deceive and I suspect that a kit will no longer be around mum after more than six months. Perhaps they were siblings?

Whatever, the Bushnell is out again tonight; with luck there'll be more to report tomorrow, and maybe some snaps worth keeping..

Magazine Update: After a brief drama involving damp paper and the wrong colour profile, which produced fuzzy, creased test pages and raised The Chief Chatterer's blood pressure even higher than normal, all is set for the Chatterbox presses to roll.

That will happen tomorrow afternoon, after I've produced the final pdf, and continue until the weekend. By then we'll have around 800 copies of our 44-page-plus-four-page-pullout extravaganza ready to distribute around the Black Isle, packed with news, features, sport and information. All this for only £1.30. And we didn't hack a single phone to achieve it.

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