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Pine martens on camera – Volunteer Blog

I started camera trapping about five years ago for my own enjoyment to look for polecats on the Mawddach Estuary. A few years later, I started volunteering for the Mammals in a Sustainable Environment project, where we were monitoring hair tubes and camera traps at Cwm Mynach to look for red squirrels. Cwm Mynach has Read More

11th April 2018

Bracketts Coppice – a blog dedicated to Maureen

It was not long after VWT’s Henry Schofield had undertaken some radio-tracking of Bechstein’s bats in 1997 from a Sussex ‘swarming’ site, that the Dorset Bat Group had some money available to purchase some bats boxes. Henry found that the bats he tracked (males) often roosted high in the trees. Looking back, it’s probably a Read More

3rd April 2018

Experiences on a Welsh sheep farm

From the early feasibility stage of our Pine Marten Recovery Project through to the post release monitoring of the pine martens, discussions with local farmers have been continual. Our conversations primarily concern the pine martens, but range widely over topics such as anecdotal observations of wildlife, predator/prey/livestock interactions, land use – both current and historical, Read More

16th March 2018

A day in the life of a PMRP volunteer

Although I have been volunteering with the Pine Marten Recovery Project (PMRP) for two years, I am yet to see a pine marten (and not for the lack of hours looking for them!). Radio-tracking is the task I most often help out with for this project and each session tends to follow a similar pattern… Read More

1st March 2018

Puzzling about polecats

Polecats are currently faring well in Britain, as the population continues to recover and spread across parts of the country following a severe historical decline driven by predator control. However, can the same be said for polecats in the rest of Europe? The status of the Western or European polecat (as ‘our’ polecat is officially Read More

20th February 2018

Final pine marten translocations to Wales

My second anniversary of working for the Vincent Wildlife Trust was spent mostly heading north on the M6 en route to the Highlands for the third and final year of pine marten translocations to Wales. It was not dissimilar to my first day with the Trust, which was spent heading south en route to head Read More

20th October 2017

A year in the life of PM16

Last year we did ‘a year in the life’ of one of our much-loved translocated martens, ‘Miss Piggy’. She managed to make herself a firm favourite with all of the PMRP staff over the first year as she was so well-behaved and followed the expected patterns of a newly translocated animal – unlike some of Read More

17th July 2017

Big Week on the Farm

In early March, we received a phone call from the producers of ‘Big Week on the Farm’ asking the VWT to take part in this year’s show to discuss the pine marten live on RTÉ One! The programme celebrates the start of spring every April, running nightly over the course of a week. There are Read More

26th June 2017

A winter in the USA

This winter, I was incredibly fortunate to take a three-month sabbatical from the VWT to work in the USA with the Michigan Predator-Prey Project. In early January, I headed across the Atlantic with bags overflowing with winter kit, ready to spend the season in Michigan. The Michigan Predator-Prey Project, led by Mississippi State University and Read More

22nd May 2017

Tracking the pine marten

It’s day seven of my quest, I’m on the first transect of the day and I am about to check how much more rain is needed before I can use the word diluvian. The Scottish Highlands is my backdrop, and I’m sniffing poo. I’m told the aroma is akin to that of parma violets. I’ve Read More

26th April 2017
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