October Above the Yard

In October the camera trap on the hill just above the yard captured fewer videos than in the past. There were videos with raccoons and opossums and white-tailed does but, with exceptions, those usually aren’t particularly interesting.

However there’s always something interesting in the natural world, and these are the most interesting videos from October.

They start with a gray fox with a kink in its tail, possibly from a broken bone; the fox then makes repeated appearances. The gray fox is followed by a red fox carrying prey; the red fox also appears again.

Some folks express difficulty in distinguishing red and gray foxes in black-and-white photos or videos: the gray fox is stocky with fairly short legs and a black stripe on the top of its tail; a red fox is more slender with longer legs and the front legs usually have a black stripe on the front.

The foxes are followed by the first of several striped skunks; the first has its tail upright, ready to spray its defensive scent, something must have startled it or an unseen fox got too close.

Late October is the height of the rut for white-tailed deer and bucks from away make an appearance as they pursue does that are local residents. It appears that seven different bucks spent time in front of the camera. Two young bucks are seen sparring, a real fight between bucks involves much more violent pushing and shoving and one of the combatants occasionally receives a mortal injury – as described in this post.

Here are October’s videos –

The bucks and the red fox were eating the apple cores and peels that we put in front of the camera, if they’d been put in our compost pile the same critters would have eaten them but you wouldn’t have seen videos of the “feast”.