So, the saying goes, “every day is a learning day”.
Author: Vince Martin, Beckfoot Mill (Dec 2025)
After the Duddon Catchment Project kindly loaned me a couple of their trail cameras, mainly with a view to catching some footage of our small but vitally important population of Red Squirrels. I enthusiastically set about looking for suitable locations for these to be placed. After trying just behind our house at Beckfoot (where we had previously seen and photographed Reds), I had very poor results with the cameras, mostly due to the dense canopy of Rhododendrons shutting out the natural light, therefore I decided to try further afield.
Due to the kind permission given by the landowner. I currently have 7 humane squirrel traps that I bait and visit every day. So, the logical place to site the cameras are on these feeders and traps (remember I was after footage of the elusive Red Squirrel, that around here share their woodland habit with the more numerous and potentially deadly to Reds, invasive Grey Squirrel).
I settled on the furthest feeder down the track as a place to set up one of the cameras. It was also in an area of much more open mixed woodland tree cover, in fact when wet this area is really quite boggy (11.5 months of the year).
After leaving the trail camera for a week, it was retrieved and brought home. Full of anticipation I sat at my laptop going through footage of a Fox, Red Deer, and Grey Squirrels (though not going into the trap due the the abundance of natural food available). Then on a very grainy black and white nighttime footage, appeared a pair of lit up eyes (from the cameras infra-red) staring at the camera. The mystery animal then shot up the tree and lifted the lid of the feeder and helped himself to a heady cocktail of cooked maize and peanuts!
My first thought was Pine Marten (due to its size and the light markings on the throat), but as a newbie to this area, and being told by a local that the nearest Pine Martens were in Grizedale Forest, I really didn’t want to appear a ridiculous, idiot, soft in the head Southerner!
I posted the video on the Duddon Catchment Whatsapp group, and it was confirmed by Rick that yes it was indeed a Pine Marten. I was well chuffed …….
Nick kindly put me in touch with a Wildlife Ranger based in Grizebeck who suggested that I put up a “tee-sniffer” where it was filmed. This sounded like a great idea, apart from the fact that I had no idea what a tee-sniffer was, how to make one, or what you did with it!
Fortunately, Google is your friend at times like this. After a quick visit to Screwfix, some black waste pipe, a few fittings and 30 minutes of sawing, glueing and drilling, and Bobs your Uncle! I had a fully-fledged tee-sniffer installed about 2 metres in front of the trail cam, baited with peanut butter mixed with oily sardines (recipe one).
The idea of the tee-sniffer is not only to attract the Pine Marten but also to encourage it to stand up on its hind legs and stretch up to the tee-sniffer and so showing the light coloured markings on its throat/chest area. Apparently, every Pine Marten has its own individual markings which make identification of each one much easier (think digital ID cards for forest dwelling mammals).
To date I have recorded a Pine Marten on that particular camera 5 times since installing the tee-sniffer, including it completely entering the squirrel trap (thankfully it was wedged open at the time) and after emptying it of maize and nuts and gingerly backing out again, but crucially how many times has it visited the luxury, tantalisingly baited tee-sniffer? A big fat zero!
I’ve even changed the bait in the tee-sniffer to a luxurious blend of strawberry jam and peanut butter (recipe two), but no, it’s still quite happy to empty my squirrel feeder and trap of maize and peanuts. I even tried pushing maize and peanuts into the tee-sniffer, obviously it’s not good enough for our resident Pine Marten!
Apparently, this is quite unusual for a Pine Marten not to use the tee-sniffer, perhaps our own valley variants have a more sophisticated taste palette, or perhaps Aldi peanut butter doesn’t cut the mustard.
I’m determined to catch that elusive shot of the Pine Martens throat markings, it can become quite addictive.
Like they say “every day is a learning day”
