How I got my Pine Marten photos
in Blog EN April 01, 2013, 22:18


In May of last year I decided to try and photograph the rare and elusive Pine Marten (Martes martes), but first I had to find some pine martens!

I placed some bait tubes in suitable wooded habitat. These were just a length of sewer pipe capped at one end and baited with chicken. They were placed vertically on the trunk of a tree allowing entry from the bottom. Very few animals, except martens are agile enough to remove the bait from these tubes. After almost six weeks something started taking the bait so I set up a trail camera to confirm it was a marten.
Pine Marten at Bait Tube


My next step was to entice the marten out onto a suitable branch so I could take a photograph. I began to bait an oak branch with chicken and sure enough the pine marten kindly obliged.
Pine Marten on Branch.



Once the marten was coming regularly I began my photography. I secured the chicken bait to the opposite side of the branch so that it would not be visible in the photograph. My set up was as follows: Canon 40D DSLR fitted with a Sigma 105mm Macro Lens and mounted on a tripod. Two Flashes set on 1/2 power. One slightly left and above the camera and connected by an off camera cord, the other was 2m to the right, lower and slightly forward of the camera. It was activated by an optical peanut slave.

I normally prefer to trigger the camera myself but in this instance, given the extremely sensitive and wary nature of the subject I opted to set up a 'camera trap'. This involved setting up an IR beam across the branch. When the pine marten broke the beam the device triggered the camera and flashes. I used this set up on two nights and both times yielded excellent results.




ISO 250, 1/250 sec, F8


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