Feeling the heat
Mark Carwardine’s article gave strong reasons why sky lanterns are hazardous to our environment (My way of thinking, March 2020). They can hit anyone, even an innocent soul in a garden who knows nothing about them.
However, you ‘shot me down in flames’ by calling for their ban. The beauty they offer in celebrations can still be maintained by advocating to manufacturers to produce eco-friendly lanterns.
Saratu Dankama, via email
I am amazed that legislation to ban them still hasn’t been passed. I thought it already had! Perhaps a vote to ban them would clarify the people’s feelings. Surely the fire services should be able to pressure the government, since they have to cope with the consequences.
This costs money and perhaps lives, since the odd animal isn’t considered important enough. Lynn Hammersley, via email
All I can say with reference to the sky lanterns article, is that I cannot believe that they are not already banned. I’ve always believed that they are dangerous and just another source of litter. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever that they should still be allowed.
Debbie Sansum, via email of anyone keeping hens within about a half-mile radius of our house. Which animal could be involved? What could carry them without major damage and open them in what is a rather delicate manner?
I know we get the occasional badger in the garden – could they really be the culprits? Roger Hart, Gloucestershire
couldn’t wait to see what was on the trailcam SD card. I was sitting on a wooden deck in the Mindo Cloud Forest, Ecuador – a change from my local woodland in Staffordshire.
The birdsong that surrounded me was as unfamiliar as the mammals I was recording
– and this was making the experience all the more incredible.
I inserted the SD card into my laptop and waited for the files to load. Then, a sudden movement caught my attention.
About 10m away, a male tayra had climbed up to the lodge’s feeding platform. Moving with skill and strength, this huge mustelid effortlessly scaled the vertical trunk, pausing to scan the landscape. I froze, laptop on my knees and my DSLR just a few centimetres from my side. The tayra locked eyes with me before continuing his ascent. Gathering myself, I gently placed my laptop to one side and lifted my camera. My heart was racing as I depressed the shutter and the image sprung into focus.
The tayra is a fabulous creature. Thickset and muscular, rather like an Arnold Schwarzenegger version of our own pine marten, this mammal is well adapted to life in the forest. It can weigh up to 7Kg, has a
ISbody length of around 60– 70cm, not including the tail, and is omnivorous – eating fruits, insects and small invertebrates as well as eggs and carrion.
I knew the species was here at El Septimo Paraiso Lodge, as the owner, Ana, told me about them when we first met at Birdfair in August. Back then, I had not even heard of a tayra, let alone seen one. Now I was just metres away from a male – and had a trailcam card full of footage, too. Ana had asked me to spend a week there with my cameras and kit, to help them understand the diversity of species visiting the lodge, but this far exceeded anything I thought I would encounter.
Little is known about the tayra. Much of my work involves rigging cameras in nestboxes and dens in the UK, but I now had a new mission: to return to Mindo and create a tayra box, fully wired with cameras, that I could monitor from home. How mind-blowing would it be to be the first to film the private life of this elusive mustelid? Mission accepted.
Thick-set and muscular, the tayra is like an Arnie version of our pine marten.
Tis a wildlife consultant. Tune in to her feeding platform at wildlifekate-alfrescowild.co.uk