Fall in the Fencerow

For a number of years one of my camera traps has been on a tree in a fencerow, so there have been previous posts of videos from the fencerow. Herewith are the videos taken from early-September through early-November. The fencerow is about 100 feet wide with trees of various sizes toward the middle bordered on each side by shrubs, primarily autumn olive that was introduced to the U.S. from Asia in the 1800s.

As you watch these video clips take note of the abundant low plants with white flowers. In early fall northcentral Pennsylvania, and much of the northeastern part of the continent, had a dry spell with little rain and those plants wilted. Later in the season as rainfall increased the plants responded and were less wilted.

That white-flowered plant is white snakeroot, an abundant native plant throughout most of eastern North America. White snakeroot is poisonous, containing the toxic chemical tremetol. White-tailed deer do not eat white snakeroot, but cattle, sheep and horses will eat the plant. In those domestic animals the tremetol is concentrated in their milk and meat.

In the early years of European settlement, when cattle were pastured in woodland, many people died from what was called milk sickness as a result of tremetol in milk. It is said that Abraham Lincoln’s mother died of milk sickness caused by tremetol.

Here are the video clips from the fencerow –

It was surprising that no eastern coyotes appeared in the videos, there are two other camera traps in the same general area that had multiple videos of those fascinating animals.