Out Back

With the coming of hunting seasons and the folks out scouting for deer, bear and turkeys, I’ve pulled all but one camera trap out of the Big Woods. Cleaned up those cameras and put several out behind the house to join the one that’s always there.

The cameras have been out for thirteen days now and with a forecast of rain for tomorrow, temptation got the better of me and I decided to see what they’d caught – a total of 383 photos on the three cameras.

For most of the summer a doe and her twin fawns have been hanging around, feeding on fallen apples and plants in the garden. The twins are a young doe and her brother that we’ve watched grow larger and gradually loose their spots.  One of the cameras had a photo of the young buck, now with spots only on his hip. Soon even those spots will be gone and he’ll have his full winter coat.

Another of the camera traps had a photo of the only antlered buck that’s been around the house this year – just a young fellow, born in 2012

The way one camera was oriented produced several rather artistic backlit photos of the deer that passed by.

Along with the deer the camera traps caught the usual gray squirrels, rabbits, opossum –

and raccoon --

But the real prizes were a number of pictures of the gray fox that comes by several times a week 

Several of the photos portrayed two of these cat-like foxes that have semi-retractable claws, frequently travel on fallen logs and can climb trees, and not just leaning trees. 

As usual, downloading photos from the camera traps is like opening the contents of those colorful packages beneath the Christmas tree – always a bit of a surprise and always a treat.