An Unusual Fox Tail

Fox tails are usually bushy masses of white, black, gray, and orange fur.  Not this fox's tail though.  This one looks like it could belong to a rat.

I'm unsure as to what the cause of this odd looking tail is, but I have a few ideas in mind.

It could be malnutrition, mange, disease, hormone imbalances, or maybe it has pulled fur out of its tail to add warmth to a den (yes, some foxes do this in the same way that some birds pull out down and feathers for the same reason).

Here's a picture of a different fox in the same location with a bushier tail.  What a beauty!

Thanks to Tim Regan and Northern Virginia Magazine!

A Case of Wildlife Fever is now featured in a local magazine!

The comments and emails that I receive are one of my favorite parts of having this blog.  People often ask me what is in their neighborhood or what I am trying to find out next on the blog.

One of these emails I received was from Tim Regan, a writer for Northern Virginia Magazine.  It was great giving him information via emails and phone calls as to what kind of animals are here and telling him some secrets regarding my pictures and research.

The magazine article that came out this month did not contain the bear pictures, so it's good to see them on the web version.

I thank him and the staff at Northern Virginia Magazine for taking the time to contact me and for having an interest in what I do,

Check out the web version of the magazine article by clicking the link below:
NoVA's Hidden Residents

A Northern Flicker

Another new cam-trapped species for me!

And a cropped version of the photo for a closer look.

I've identified this one as a Northern Flicker.  Please correct me if I am wrong by commenting below or by emailing me.

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Two Cameras at One Set

Two cameras placed at a set are better than one!  Today's results proved this.

A few weeks ago, my father and I headed west to put up two of my cameras out into the woods.

We had two cameras to use and decided to place them both up at the same set.  We wondered if this would be a good or a bad idea, because if somebody was to find one of the cameras, they would most likely find both of the cameras.

It turned out to be a good idea when we checked them today.

Both of us had the day off, so we headed back out to the same place to review the SD cards that store the pictures in the cameras, change a few things, and replace any dead batteries.

It's a difficult camera-trap set to get to.

Driving west, it takes about 45 minutes to arrive at a trail head that leads to the site.  Hiking out, wading through skunk cabbage, and watching your footing on scree and boulders are all part of the process of getting to the cameras here.  It's a good little hike.

The one camera hasn't been working too well, so we took it down to take home with us.  The other camera (one made by Wildgame Innovations) takes better quality pictures and has a trigger system that works well, so we kept it there, protected in a bear-resistant case, to continue taking pictures.

Results of this camera weren't fantastic, but a few animals did come by.

An opossum appeared in 9 pictures and a fox appeared in 1 picture.

There were 24 total pictures, most of which were of squirrels or nothing (false triggers).



I've got the camera that we took down, sitting right next to me.  I'll decide where to put it next in a day or two.

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.

Dogs on Cam

No matter how far off a trail I put a camera, there is a good chance that a domestic dog will find it.

Here are a few pictures of some curious canines that have shown up.

Leesburg Bear Gets Into Garage

The power and strength of a black bear is incredible.

One local homeowner had a black bear rip through a garage door just to get some food that it smelled inside.  I wonder if it could have been one of the same bears that I have gotten on camera in the past few weeks.

Check out the story at http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Bear-Crashes-Through-Leesburg-Garage-Door-205756511.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DCBrand .

This story comes courtesy of nbcwashington.com and NBC Universal.

The Most Common Camera-Trap Visitor Is. . .

The white-tailed deer!

Deer walking on a popular game trail in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Other animals can't even come close to showing up in numbers comparable to deer. 

I have known this fact since I started doing this, but today I crunched some numbers to get exact percentages of deer having their pictures taken by my cams.  

It took some time to organize thousands of pictures into files and folders, but the time I spent doing this offered a good break from studying for my looming final exams that I have been spending a ridiculous amount of time on in the past week.

The results below omit videos, pictures of me taken by the cameras, false camera triggers, and test pictures.

White-tailed deer hold the record for most camera-trap images taken at a staggering 52% of total images of animals.  

Raccoons can't even catch up, but hold steady in second place by appearing in 29% of my pics.

Foxes come in third place and have shown up in 12% of my pics.

All other animals shown on this blog make up for the 7% that is in my collective category of fourth place.

What makes deer have such a greater number of camera appearances is based on a whole combination of factors.  

First of all, deer are very numerous in northern Virginia, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to see them so often.  

Deer also frequently travel in pairs or small groups.  If a camera triggers where there are multiple deer (as the cameras often do), the deer appearance rate goes up significantly since I account for multiple individuals of the same species in these statistics.  Deer also travel in both day and night and aren't as camera shy as many other animals are.

Deer live alongside humans in many areas of northern Virginia.  Seeing a camera in the woods does not seem to bother deer at all, since they are so used to human-made objects anyway.

Other factors to consider when wondering why deer show up so often are:  travel patterns, food availability for deer vs. other animals, skittishness, camera placement, camera height, mating seasons of deer vs. other animals, other animals in the area, how frequently I check the cameras, and many many more.