Portable, outdoor, digital, recording cameras can be triggered to take a photograph of anything that moves in front of them. They are therefore very useful for tracking and monitoring the behaviour of animals during the 24 hours of day and night. During the day they produce both video and still pictures in colour and by night the pictures are formed by infra red light.

I use several of these cameras to monitor the behaviour of badgers: their distribution, their emergent and return times to their setts, their cleaning habits and their aggressive displays. It was while examining the results of one particular camera that I found that instead of recording a badger it had photographed a family of foxes. (See photograph above). The vixen had used the entrance to a badger sett in which to have her family, while a badger still used the same entrance!

Later the same camera revealed another mystery photograph. (See photograph below).

The photograph was taken at 9.51pm on the 23 June 2009 by infra red light.

A fox, seen in the picture, triggered the camera and a flying object was recorded as a white line (estimated at 10 metres long) with periodic white blobs on it. The camera shutter was open for 1/10th of a second, so if the white blobs were caused by wing beats, the rate would work out at 100 beats per second - too fast for a bird. Other possibilities (if we reject little green men and flying foxes) are flying insects or bats but I still favour a bird with the white periodic blobs being caused by something other than wing beats. There is a tawny owl in the wood, which often comes to the camera, stands in front of it and takes it own photograph. They are not very good photographs but owls are not renowned for their photography. I think it is attracted by the red glow of the infra red light on the camera. Perhaps the wise old owl knows something about the mystery . . .

Any suggestions as to the cause of this recorded flying object would be received with the utmost enthusiasm. Russell Edwards