Patiently waiting.....

I’m a great believer in ‘sitting & waiting’ as well as actively searching for wildlife. I’ve got a few spots where I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks. This is a spot close to the bridge over the M1 heading along the road from Steppingley. It was here on the left that I found the dead Polecat on 26th June. Badgerman found it, too, and saw a live one running across the road in the same place the following day. You can read his thoughts on his excellent blog. I spoke to someone at the weekend who had noted 2 dead Polecats in this place a few years ago. There are wood edges each side of the road here, and it is obviously as good a place as any hereabouts for seeing Polecat. Having said that, I have spent a number of hours sitting in the car here early in the morning (3.30am onwards on a couple of occasions) and not seen any yet. But I'm not disappointed at all, because I've seen various birds, a number of Red Foxes, Muntjac Deer, Grey Squirrels, Rabbits, a Wood Mouse, and Badgerman himself who drives past and waves on his way to the station just before 6.30am!

And here’s the other place where I’ve spent some time over the last day or two: a bridge with the busy A6 above and a stream below. There are loads of mammal footprints in the mud of the left-hand tunnel, including Red Fox & Brown Rat with many more obscured by the amount of activity. I've been sitting on the right-hand side looking down onto this scene. I had a Wood Mouse bounding about last night….and noticed this creature yesterday morning:
It was only a quick record shot, hence the quality, but it’s the first Signal Crayfish that I’ve seen in Bedfordshire. It stayed in the shallow water here for a few minutes before disappearing into the deeper water beneath the broken clay pipe in the background. I’m hoping to pick up many more species over the coming weeks!

UPDATE:

There’s great news regarding the baby Noctule Bat that I wrote about on June 8th. Here’s a news article that details what’s been happening recently.