Sharkbait Productions produce wildlife and nature documentaries for broadcast and online distribution. Please contact us for more information.

During June, Kevin helped fit radio transmitters to red kites in central Scotland as part of the long running study on the effects of the Braes of Done wind farm on the local reintroduced kite population. Between his efforts and those of other Natural Research Ltd staff, RSPB and the local Raptor Study Group, 14 transmitters were fitted to nestling kites in Central Scotland.

In addition another year-old kite was fitted with a radio transmitter. This bird was picked up poisoned on 2nd June suffering from the effects of having been illegally poisoned with Alphachloralose. This usually kills its victims by hypothermia and possibly the warm weather that week allowed it to survive. It was cared for by SSPCA and released at Argaty Red Kites near Doune on 17th June. The bird was in a communal roost with other kites the following night and remains in the area. The female bird, known as Blue/Black two red spots from its wing tags, was originally from the population near Inverness but had spent the winter in central Scotland. Lets hope that this bird survives to breed and is not a victim of illegal persecution once again.

Over the next couple of weeks Sharkbait Productions hope to film goshawk chicks being fitted with leg rings at secret location in South Scotland.

Whilst filming displaying birds of prey in the Duddon Valley, Cumbria, we came across a wood ants' nest and stopped to take a closer look. Although there were no wood ant experts in the group at the time, we identified them as hairy wood ants!

Although you will need a microscope to see them, a hairy wood ant actually has hairy 'eyebrows'. As the name suggests, wood ants are found in woodlands and, where present, indicate a healthy woodland ecosystem.

Up to 500,000 wood ants can live in a single colony. Nests, approximately 1 m in height and 2 m in diameter at the base, are built in the shape of a dome and their thatch like qualities allow water to be shed. The south side of the nest is often flatter to present a greater surface area to the mid-day sun. Worker ants carefully maintain the nest and can be sunbathing in spring after which they go into the nest to release excess heat and keep the eggs warm. The ants we saw were very active with hundreds of workers moving about at the surface.

The worker wood ants will fiercely protect their nest by biting and spraying intruders with a type of formic acid. However, green woodpecker, which are common in this part of Cumbria, and the jay are known to fly into an ant nest and allow themselves to be sprayed with formic acid in order to rid themselves of mites.

Worker ants find food by hunting and scavenging and they locate prey by vibration. We saw the wood ants in the Duddon Valley crawling up the trunks of trees to forage in the canopy. Sometime they will return by the same route, other times especially when birds are also foraging in the woods they choose to return to the forest floor by jumping!

Hairy wood ant is afforded protection under Section 1(2)(b) of the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act (2004) and the Country Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW) and is a priority species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Threats to hairy wood ant include insensitive and large-scale clearfelling operations and lack of management, particularly where woodland is becoming increasingly shaded and suitable habitat is not provided at woodland edge.

We were so impressed that we are seriously considering giving wood ants a starring role in one of our new documentaries!

Sharkbait Productions have started filming a short documentary looking at the issues surrounding raptor persecution in the UK. Most of the filming will take place in Scotland and we aim to interview people and organisations from both sides of the argument including game keepers, raptor conservationist and government officials.