In our Shadow
How does the way we live today affect wildlife? Sometimes all the building, developing and moving into rural areas has been a good thing, if not intentionally. Iolo will be looking at the positive elements of the relationship between man and nature in small and large towns.
Diary of a Cameraperson – Emma Ford
I spent several nights filming the dormice. John spent one evening filming them and he was taken by surprise when he panned from the branches above the box back to the box to find a tawny owl sitting on it. It made him jump, but was a great added bonus!
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This was on the first night of filming. I then spent further nights out filming, spending several hours just after dusk and then again at dawn trying to get footage. It's pretty spooky standing in a forest at night in the dark, but once I spotted the dormouse and started to get some footage, I forgot where I was.
You can constantly hear tawny owls and one even landed in a tree just above me. After John's experience however, it made me nervous for the safety of the dormouse. On one occasion, I had heard a tawny owl very close by, and the dormouse didn't come back for a while. I was so hoping it hadn't been eaten! Eventually it came back though.
One of the best moments was when I was filming the adult come back to the box. I focused in on the box entrance to realise there were two dormice, and I realised I was watching a mother and one of her babies together. I did a silent woo-hoo! behind the camera. I had never seen a dormouse in the wild prior to this filming, let alone an adult and young one interacting – and I had managed to get it on tape!
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