National Geographic

So much is happening with our original pine marten family.. it's changing on a daily basis.

In the last blog we were amazed the third kit had made a surprise appearance after an absence of many months.
Cullen confronted the third kit, now named Keane at one of our cameras. They had a fair old tussle before going their separate ways none the worse for the encounter, since this meeting, they have been together a fair bit with no more fighting. Jagger (the adult male) has also been with them on an individual basis mostly. However, Jagger and Cullen are still best mates..
 
 This clip we got of the male kits fighting was bought by National Geographic channels for £170. They sourced the clip through Newsflare.

Newsflare contacted me to ask permission to sell the clip with a 50-50 share.

I can't wait to update on young Katy..
It seems she's back and accepted by the family, I've got clips with her and Jagger, and her and Cullen, they are getting on very well. She visits very often, almost daily as do all 5 martens.. So happy she didn't need to leave... just yet anyway!!

For a few days Pip our wee border terrier was attracted to a pile of logs in the forest by the road, I ignored it for a while.. Meg eventually suggested there might be a Marten lying up in the pile.
I carry a small torch in my rucksack so promptly got down on my belly and began to systematically look in every small crack and hole.
There was an egg shell... wow... so a Marten had been in the logs at some point!
However....Pip knew better than me, he steadfastly pointed to one spot.. well, he was actually biting the log! 
I got back down flat on the ground, shone my light in the hole between the logs.. low and behold a Pine Martens bright white eyes shone back at me, no more than 10 feet away.
I must admit.. i got the fright of my life, I only kept the torch light on the animal for a second, then bolted, not halting until we were at our car which is a safe distance away. The last thing we want is to disturb a Marten.
If pushed, I'd say it was Katy in the logs because at the time she was getting a rough time of it from the males.. this location is a bit away from the main family area, possibly a safe place for her to rest up... to be fair, this last statement is a total guess!!
I contacted the forestry company to protect the log pile until it can be assessed. 

We're hopeful Mrs Brown will have another litter of kits this year, today we had the first positive sign, she had a teat showing which hopefully proves she's lactating and feeding young! I actually noticed her back end swollen and protruding slightly yesterday 06.04.18. I'll stick my neck out and say her kits were born the last couple of days... between the 4th and 6th April 2018.

This is the advantage of having a camera set at 2 feet, lots of detail! I've been scrutinising every second of footage looking for a sign that's she's given birth over the past couple of weeks. I'm sure I got proof  today... fingers crossed.

We're working to build a hide next to the cameras at this family of martens. Margaret and me sat in on Thursday night, by 7 pm we were settled in.. It was never the plan to sit all night but at 7.15 a Marten  appeared, more or less at our feet... it came through a hole in a tree root on the ground level. In fact, it's the same hole Pip tries to get through every time we go to the cameras.. Pip's nose doesn't lie.. Anyway, the Marten turned on it's heels and shot off..
 I just presumed the martens would run over the many windfall trees to the cameras.. not along the ground! That was a surprise..


 Our hide was too close. I'm working on plan B and this will work....

 Watch this space...