Nature features

"Are the badgers up on Facebook yet?"

It's certainly not the kind of question you expect to hear every day but for Cheryl Nicholson and her colleagues at WildPlaces it makes perfect sense.

A badger recorded in Newcastle

WildPlaces is a new project launched by the North East Wildlife Trusts in May 2009 to increase awareness of the huge range of wildlife living in urban areas.

Central to the scheme is the use of CCTV cameras to film and photograph animals in urban habitats - with the resulting footage being posted online, including on social-networking website Facebook.

In the first couple of months the WildPlaces team have already captured the secret lives of badgers, foxes, deer, hedgehogs and otters on their motion sensitive cameras.

Cheryl, the project manager, said WildPlaces was inspired by the BBC's Springwatch programme.

"The interest generated through the Springwatch phenomenon, we want to bring that down to a local level," she said.

Cheryl is WildPlaces project manager

"[We want] to engage with people throughout the North East in urban areas who wouldn't normally have access to wildlife and show them what amazing wildlife is actually around them."

And it could be much closer than you think - a lot of the footage already recorded on the WildPlaces cameras has actually been taken in people's back gardens.

Kara Jackson, project officer for WildPlaces in the Northumberland region, was particularly excited by an early recording of badgers in Newcastle.

"The footage of the badgers, that was just amazing because you're looking through all the [video] clips and there's nothing and there's nothing and suddenly you see a badger head coming under the fence," she said.

"Not many people get a chance to see them because they're quite elusive animals so it's really nice to have really clear pictures and video clips."

Infrared

The team's main focus in the initial months of the two-year project has been on finding out which cameras work best in the field and fine-tuning them.

Kara with one of the cameras

They are all motion activated so they only start recording when there is movement but that means they need to be set at just the right sensitivity - otherwise they might switch on every time a moth or fly buzzed past.

The cameras are also infrared meaning that any nocturnal wildlife activity can be recorded clearly.

Ultimately the team hope to have about 30 devices they can use across the three North East Wildlife Trust regions of Northumberland, Durham and Tees Valley - and they'd like the public to help them choose where to place them.

So, if you think you have badgers, foxes or any other creatures hanging out in your garden - or an urban space near you - they'd like to hear from you.

"[We could put the cameras] anywhere," Cheryl said. "Anywhere that's classed as an urban area. So gardens, allotments, some parts of reserves, schools, even someone's place of work, offices."

Kara added: "Just wherever we think there might be mammals and where people are interested."

Conservation

The plan is to regularly move the cameras around to capture as many different animals in as many locations as possible.

A roe deer caught on camera

The best images and film will be added to the WildPlaces website and Facebook page each week to make them easily accessible for people to view.

Technology-lovers will have the opportunity to get involved with managing the camera systems if they want to and the WildPlaces team will also be working to encourage people to get involved with habitat management and conservation.

They hope the CCTV images will be a good way of inspiring people to get involved with the wildlife on their doorstep.

Kara said: "A lot of the schools I've worked with, the fields outside that's about the only green space [the children] come in contact with.

"A lot of them don't have a lot of respect for wildlife because they don't understand it. So hedgehogs and things like that, they don't see them as animals, they're just a football or something to kick around.

"So I think it's really important that when they're young we educate them now and they'll hopefully grow up to want to look after the wildlife around them."

You can find out more about the project, how to get involved and see photos and videos already recorded by using the links below.