In the Hollow – July 2019

Now that summer has drawn to a close, it’s time to look back at some of the videos that the camera trap in the hollow collected during the warmest weather of the year. With the exception of insects, for most species of wildlife – and me – hot weather is unpleasant. Combined with an abundance of food, heat reduces wildlife activity.

So the camera trap only had a few videos in July, but they’re worth a look: Twin white-tail fawns checking new scents – including the camera. A young buck. A black bear with tags in its ears. An eastern coyote with a limp. Wild turkeys. Another eastern coyote – this one out and about in daylight. And the fawn again.

July in the hollow is quite different from winter in the hollow as seen here.

Those Nice Bright Colors

In the words of Paul Simon’s song “Kodachrome” –

They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers

Summer greens, compared to those of spring, tend to be pretty uniform and the hillsides often look just plain green. But there certainly are “nice bright colors” in addition to the “greens of summers”. 

Here they are, some of “those nice bright colors” of summer –

Bee-balm

Black-eyed Susan

Blue Vervain

Turk's-cap Lily

Joe-Pye-weed

Indian-tobacco

Red Milkweed Beetle

Butterfly-weed

Early Goldenrod

Blue Dasher

Fly Aminita

Lesser Grapevine Looper

Unidentified Fungus

Blackberry Sp.

Thrush Egg

American Goldfinch

Swamp Milkweed

Wild Turkey Feather

Cardinal-flower

The days are getting shorter, the temperatures are dropping and soon there will be the nice bright colors of fall.

Running the Log & Crossing the Log

A camera trap has been aimed down a fallen white pine for well over a year. At first it was only there sporadically and was a homebrewed camera trap that took color still photos day and night – photos from that unit can be seen here .

More recently the camera trap has been one that took videos; at times a commercial unit has been there and sometimes it’s been a homebrewed video camera trap – some of those videos were posted here.

Over time the camera trap has been moved around a bit to give it a better/different view or make it more secure. Over the last few weeks the camera trap captured some interesting or humorous videos of common mammals –

Hope you enjoyed these, the camera may well capture more good videos before it comes in for a while in anticipation of deer season when more humans will be in the Big Woods.