Trail Cameras Again

[Mike in Seattle]

View attachment 569717
What's that in the tree, owl?

, sorry, missed this the other day,,

Not an owl, that's above the horizon line, so a couple of stars.

If you look at the bambi pics in #397, on the lower right, you can see two upright pieces of firewood, snow capped.

The dog in the night pic covered the left one.
I had set those pieces verticle as a "marker" to where I had set up a bait station for coyotes, using canned cat food, some food scraps and bacon drippings .
I had a shooting position set up way left, out of the pic and up hill, and used the uprights reference.


The large number of deer pics is making me think there were not any 'yotes in the area at that time,
, and the ( no collar) dog is a stray, or feral.

 

[Mrleft8]

, sorry, missed this the other day,,

Not an owl, that's above the horizon line, so a couple of stars.

If you look at the bambi pics in #397, on the lower right, you can see two upright pieces of firewood, snow capped.

The dog in the night pic covered the left one.
I had set those pieces verticle as a "marker" to where I had set up a bait station for coyotes, using canned cat food, some food scraps and bacon drippings .
I had a shooting position set up way left, out of the pic and up hill, and used the uprights reference.


The large number of deer pics is making me think there were not any 'yotes in the area at that time,
, and the ( no collar) dog is a stray, or feral.

View attachment 570766

I dunno about stars.... But at 8:41PM and at 3:20(something)AM the dots are in the same place, and I've never seen stars stand that still for that long.... Of course Owls don't usually do that either, so......

 

[Mike in Seattle]

hmmm,
I was speculating stars.

however,,

I flicked through all the pics we got.
18, from Sept 11 when I put it out, through Nov 21 when I pulled it.

Those "owl eyes" are in ALL of the night pics.
, so I dunno about stars either. Maybe house lights on the other side of the lake?

You got my curiosity interested, AND, I'll be back over there in a couple of weeks.
I'll go in daylight, sit where the camera was and see if I can figure out what they are.

Whitetail deer in this area.

I'm used to seeing blacktail on the westside, so these are an interesting change.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

What's that in the tree, owl?

Not an owl, that's above the horizon line, so a couple of stars.

Those "owl eyes" are in ALL of the night pics.
, so I dunno about stars either. Maybe house lights on the other side of the lake?

, and after sequencing through, I noticed "owl" winked at me a few times,, cheeky little bastard,,


My bad;
I misunderestimated the horizon line from the first pics.
Houselights, some miles away. Winking is a windblown branch.

Camera is reset in the same place, and suprisingly, both of the firewood piece markers are still standing where I put them,, even after being under snow all winter.

, a casual stroll through the 'hood finds many active trails ,
( fresh deerdoo melts it's way down into the snow a bit)

, and a bedding area , recently used withing thle last couple days.

, where the wild things are.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

just after midnight

shoe size after light

Good Times !

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

I have my camera set to take a picture and ten seconds of video when triggered. The video is almost never worth watching and often doesn't show the critter that the picture shows.

Yesterday was an exception. I got a pretty crappy bobcat picture and a video segment that isn't bad.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Bobcat in daylight the other day, which is rare. In the background is the oak from the curricane thread that required a big end loader to stand it back up. This is less than a hundred feet from the house in an area where all of my critters go frequently.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

The video is unimpressive.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Bobcat at night.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Not the trail cam, just my phone, but there are scratches in a cabbage palm very near to my house.

Lots of critters, especially my dog, could explain those lower ones. The higher ones are 8 feet up. The list of critters that could make them is pretty short. Human, bear, maybe panther, some quantum possibility of skunk ape. None seem at all likely. But the tree is scratched.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

8 feet up is higher than I can reach.

, so, would you prefer the panther or skunk ape

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

8 feet up is higher than I can reach.

, so, would you prefer the panther or skunk ape

We used to use my fingertips to set volleyball nets. 8' exactly. Of course, that was decades ago and I may be shrinking.

I actually think black bear is most likely but also pretty unlikely. They are in this area, but having one show up right there by the house and start scratching that particular tree? There are lots of other cabbage palms to scratch, all of them further from the house.

It will probably remain a mystery.

In other news, I added some lights to my bridge and got this pic going across it yesterday in the last light of day.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Lots of recent visitors to my trail camera. I kept more coyote shots than usual just to share them on FB with my dog's foster mom. She lives in a golf course suburb and was fearful of coyotes when taking her dog for a night time piss. I told her that if one actually got close, she should mark it with a paintball gun. You know, for research purposes. Anyway, I've seen coyotes on my cameras for ten years now and lived here almost 30 but never had a pet fight with a coyote.

Hawk. I got a cool video too. The hawk takes off, which lasts less than a second, but the first 19 frames are cool in slow mo. I'll try to youtube it.

And the next morning the bobcat.

Then the next day the hawk again.

The next day the coyote.

Twice.

And the next day.

And this is why I don't keep all that many coyote pics.

Then a gopher tortoise showed up for some variety.

And... we're back to the coyote. But in May, which is a new month, so that's new.

I think this is my first vulture on the trail cam.

And the bobcat one more time. A bit earlier in the day but later in the year so the camera thought it was daylight.

The coyote and/or bobcat are probably down there right now. I'm going to go disturb them by getting my fishing boat ready to go.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

The hawk takeoff. One second of video strung out to almost a minute.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I had never seen a (wild) turkey before. (none on the wetside)

I was excited to see the native bird , but the locals aren't as impressed.

" , get in the crops, raid the garden, general pain in the ass , etc. "

 

[Mike in Seattle]

, and a coyote.

I spent an evening until too dark to see,
, and a morning from too dark to see until ~9 AM.

 

[Mrleft8]

That is one spectacular vid or a young Red Shouldered hawk!

 

[Mrleft8]

That is one spectacular vid of a young Red Shouldered hawk!

 

[Mike in Seattle]

",,, spectacular vid ,,,"

Agree.


Agree



Tom, ? did your cam do that,, or post processed w/ laptop ?

I got a whole series of pics this time of "nothing".
When I scrolled through a bit faster, I realized the cam was ,one frame at a time, recording a windstorm on 4 May.




? see that white crescent on her butt ?

Sometimes, Bambi does not get along with another.
They bite the ass hairs out of each other.


, and that has just GOT to hurt .

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Tom, ? did your cam do that,, or post processed w/ laptop ?

The camera shoots a still pic and then ten seconds of video when motion-activated. The first second of video got the hawk taking off. I dabble with video editing using iMovie. In that case, I just went frame by frame and chose the "make freeze frame" menu option. I think I also made it super-slo-mo, which is why you can see those frames at the end. I don't do that kind of stuff much so it took me a little bit to figure out how to do it and I'm already well into the process of forgetting again.