Click-Alert

Not all wildlife is as relaxed in front of the camera. But for this vole the bird food is too tempting.

The inhabitants of the old stone wall put in an appearance most mornings. Yesterday a family of young shrews was playing peep-bo. Small snouts kept appearing from different crevices, then immediately vanished.

They might have stayed a brief second longer but all these animals hate the click of a camera. It's odd that they don't seem to feel quite as bothered by a human voice nor even a dog's bark. But that click, which they hear almost before it happens, carries a special fear.

Consequently the shot is usually blurred, or you get a glimpse of a tail disappearing;

often there's nothing at all but the stone itself.

Among the larger mammals, deer are also click-averse but react in another way. They hear the click from some 30 yards away, perhaps when browsing on young birch.

They freeze and stare indignantly in the direction of the sound.

Not long before they too are off to somewhere safer.