Trail Camera on the Trail

Most people call them trail cameras, I prefer to call them camera traps – in any case they’re either commercial or homemade digital cameras that utilize one of several different kinds of motion detectors to turn the camera on and trigger photos or videos. Last fall I set one of my homemade camera traps along a wildlife trail on a rather steep hillside to see what used the trail – so this really was a trail camera.

The first image the camera captured was of a black bear –

Then came several white-tailed deer searching for acorns beneath the larger oak trees on the hillside –

A porcupine also searched for those nutritious acorns –

In late October a white-tail buck thrashed a small white pine as the rut was about to reach its peak. The camera captured a number of photographs of the buck in action –

 

That wasn’t the only buck on the hillside, but this one was just a young fellow –

Almost a month later another impressive buck passed the camera. At first I thought it was the same deer as the one in the collage, but a closer look revealed that this one's antlers were different –

In mid-December more snow fell and deer continued to use the trail –

A couple of weeks later, after a bit more snow had accumulated, a bobcat walked the trail –

And deer continued to use the trail through the end of January when I changed the camera's memory card –

The trail camera along the trail will remain in place  to capture more photos of wildlife on the hillside.