More Trail Cam Imgaes

I gotta tell ya, this trail cam is the bomb! To be able to see what is roaming the far reaches of our property (all five acres of it!) without having to sit in a blind is wonderful.

At a show in early July, a kettle corn vendor named Wolf Runner (no kidding, he's Native American, his wife's name is Bunny) brought us a bag of waste corn after the show. I dumped some of it in front of the trail cam and waited a week before I checked the card.

I was surprised how long it took for anyone other than the rabbits to discover the corn. The first image of something other than a rabbit was three nights after I dumped the corn, but I couldn't have been more excited by what I saw unless it had been a bear--a gray fox!

A gray fox nibbles on kettle corn

I had never seen one before, and while I still technically haven't, just to know we have them around is really neat. He showed up several times over the next week, often in the company of a raccoon, which I thought was really odd.

Much of the piles had been consumed by the time this doe and fawn came by. She is really ripped up, and I can only imagine what might have happened to her. Was she protecting her fawn from coyotes? Was she hit by a car? It's any one's guess, but we have not seen her since these images were made, either on the trail cam or in person. I've seen the fawn on a number of occasions so I imagine she is nearby but still I wonder.

Here's the same fawn the next day, sans doe.

Very late to the popcorn pile was this coyote, clearly skittish. This is the only shot we got of him.

 
We got a couple of nice images of the fox later on in the week. I have noticed a number of images where the animals are looking/listening off to the north east. Past these trees and shrubs that make up the corner of our property the land opens up to a natural gas pipeline easement that seems to serve as something of a corridor for animals moving through the woods. Could be he's about to have visitors.



 

Ten days later this little one made an appearance. I think this is a younger fawn than the one we saw before. There were also no images of this fawn with a doe.

Most recently, and one that brings me great joy, is this image of a wild turkey hen and her poults. I saw this family several weeks prior to this, on the hill in front of the small woods at the top corner of our property. The poults took to the air and flew up into the oaks while mom walked up the hill, keeping a close eye on me.

I read Joe Hutto's book Illumination in the Flatwoods over the winter, about his experience raising several clutches of wild turkeys.  Having raised several broods of chickens (we're working on one right now) this was very interesting reading. PBS Nature produced a documentary as well called My Life as  Turkey that you can watch here.  Wonderful stuff, and as with most Nature films, beautifully shot.

Gotta get that camera card back in the trail cam and see what other surprises await us!

Trail Cam Images

This past Christmas Santa brought us Bear Track girls a trail camera.  We'd talked for years about getting one but never got around to it, so I was very excited when one showed up under our tree.

We have five acres of mixed habitat.  Historically it was black oak barren, but years of human abuse have left it covered with autumn olive and other invasive species.  It's part open grassland, part shrubland, part mixed hardwood/conifer woods.  We have lots of critters, some we knew, some we only suspected.  The trail cam would help verify who is here and when they come around.

The biggest challenge was figuring out where to put it.  We first put it by the chicken coop, but didn't get any pictures of anything but the dog.  We next tried behind my studio, where the bird feeders are, thinking they would draw in critters.  We did get a few good shots, like this white-tailed deer...

...and this terrible twosome, angling for the suet and getting a drink from my wagon bird bath. 

But mostly we got pictures of me filling the feeders, or of the dog, or of nothing at all.  I think most of the action took place so far away the sensor just didn't pick up the movement.

It is recommended that the camera be placed where it faces north to reduce glare from the sun on the lens.  We were finding it hard to find a tree of the right size in the right place facing a worn path, but finally one day, out looking for morel mushrooms, we found the perfect spot.  The trail it faces passes into our neighbor's property and through this sheltered spot, and it has proved to be a good choice.

Right off the bat we got lots of rabbit photos.  Rabbits are good because they're a prey animal and will bring other animals into this area.

Then the camera captured this wonderful pose by a doe.  I laugh because I could not have taken a better shot than this if I'd been sitting in a blind being eaten by mosquitoes.  This is much more pleasant!

This next image was a big surprise.  I have only seen a turkey on our property once in six years, so to catch this hen crossing the trail was a thrill.

Nice shot of two white-tail rumps.

Finally we got a shot of what we had been hoping for--an animal we knew was out there but had never seen on our property.  This gorgeous coyote paused briefly on its way to our neighbor's open field.  We have heard their cries and calls from time to time, sometimes distant, sometimes no more than a few hundred feet from the house.  This was validation.  Now if we can only get one facing the camera!

And just last week, this buck paused for his portrait.  More than just a button buck, I'll be curious to see how his rack develops this summer.

 My show season kicks off in earnest this weekend at the East Lansing Art Festival.  Check it out at www.elartfest.com!