It was
early spring and the winter’s ice had melted when the camera trap went back to
the beaver pond where it had been last year (see this post). At the first check the
memory card had photos of wood ducks –
A
great blue heron –
And a
bobcat –
That camera takes only still photos, with all the wildlife activity I decided to replace it with a video camera. Here are some of the videos from the month of June –
More
videos from the beaver pond will be in next week’s post – stay tuned.
By this time of year most species of wildlife
have had their offspring. Some of those young ones are now old enough to face the world
alone – squirrels and chipmunks and cottontail rabbits and great horned owls quickly come to mind. Some species are born later in the year or are
dependent for a longer period.
In the last couple of weeks the camera traps
above the house have gotten videos of some of those young animals and their
mothers. The young ones followed their mothers around: to nurse when they
were hungry; to gradually learn what foods are palatable; where to take shelter
from storms (rain seems to have been unceasing lately); and, hopefully, how
to stay away from danger.
Here are some of those videos: of
spindly-legged fawns and black bear cubs –
Young ones often have to hustle to
keep up with their longer-legged mothers and the bear cubs were no exception.
Older posts (here and here) contained
photographs and videos from camera traps at our son and daughter-in-law’s place
far to the north. Recently we visited and I took the opportunity to check the
cameras once again.
Although a couple of the cameras had only a few
photos, others yielded much more of interest. There was still snow on the
ground when this white-tailed deer passed the camera –
Ten days later when a flock of turkeys came
by all the snow had melted –
For two months a camera trap that takes
videos had been further down the hill. It was set up to take videos along the
length of a fallen log and the remaining stub of the dead tree from which the
log had fallen. Here are the birds and mammals that appeared in those videos –
I’d also set a camera trap at the edge of
their pond in hope of getting photos of the otter that shows up at the pond a
couple of times a year. No otter this time, but a pair of mallards spent some
time on the pond –
At other times wood ducks and black ducks
have spent time there, however this time it was only mallards.
But the camera at the pond provided a real
trophy in the form of several photographs of an American bittern –
Their property borders thousands of acres of
additional woodland so I never know what may appear in photos or videos from
these camera traps.
