March UMAC surveys: Spotlight from Southampton MammalWatch
Hi All! It’s Georgia from the #SotonMammals team again! How are you doing since we last spoke? All been on the look out for mammals? Yes? Good.
It’s been a very hectic month for us all, we’re all getting ready to go on various field trips. Jack and I are going to demonstrate on a field course run for first years to Bolonia, Spain, Frances and Carla are going to Belize for a Tropical Field Course, and Owen is going to Mexico to find some larger mammals, jaguars.
Kicking off the chilly (but warm some days, kind of confusing) month of March we carried out a dawn survey on the 1st, on which we found 1 rat and 4 squirrels. Later on in the day we spotted a fox and cat.
On the 4th we found three rats, and on the 5th we carried out a Longworth survey, and added three wood mice to our growing list. We got a red fox on our camera trap on the 6th, and on the 12th found two more squirrels and a rat.
At this point it started to get really crazy for our already busy team so on the 14th, Frances and I put out five new camera traps along all transects, to keep up our data collection whilst people were getting ready for big presentations and deadlines.
Unfortunately, this will be quite a short blog post as we all go our separate ways for various expeditions, but I will leave you with a number of cool pictures.
18th March - we found signs of a badger on campus! During the University’s Annual Science and Engineering Day, a young scientist identified badger tracks in the Gardens!
Knock knock, who’s there?
It’s me, Erinaceus europaeus.
It’s true, we had a new species on our camera traps, the European hedgehog!
This is team Southampton MammalWatch, keeping you in the loop of our Mammals' Tail. #SotonMammals