Checking the Cams Before the Storm

Today was a successful day for me, even with a good thunderstorm that seemed to come out of nowhere.

I had to take a college exam in the morning, so I got that out of the way first.  I did a few errands as well, but eventually the time came for me to head out into one of Northern Virginia’s wilder areas to see what results a few of my cameras had gotten.

A good sized snapping turtle.

A good amount of turtles were out wandering the paths with me, so I decided to snap a few pictures of them.

Eastern box turtle taking a soak.

Another box turtle.

Nothing good came out the first camera-trap I checked.  It took 6 pictures of the woods (false triggers) and 4 pictures of white-tailed deer before the batteries ran out.  It only ran for a few hours.  I loaded it with new batteries and made sure it was working. 

On to the next!

The second camera is in a fantastic, picturesque setting that features a background of silver-green autumn olive trees.

It only took 19 pictures of white-tailed deer, a few of raccoons, and a few of groundhogs though.

By the time I left this camera, storm clouds were billowing up to a great height in the sky.  Time was running short.

I sped up to go to the next camera but as soon as I got there, the clouds opened up with an amazing array of lightning and thunder.  I quickly downloaded the pictures from the SD card in the camera, to my laptop.

I got back to a building before the hail came down and sat down to view the pictures that I had just downloaded, but not seen yet. 

Here is what I saw:

Pileated Woodpecker!  A new cam-trapped species for me.

White-tailed deer.  Notice the buttons growing from its head that are soon to be full antlers.