Beavers on the Goose

"The Goose".  It's how a few of us who camera-trap refer to Goose Creek.

Goose Creek is a state scenic  river that runs through Leesburg, Va and flows into the Potomac River.

I put a few cameras up last week right near the banks of Goose Creek near beaver chewed trees.

The results are great.

As you can see, the beavers are hard at work. 

For now, the cameras have been taken down.  They were just to0 visible to have there for too long.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There's no way this blog is having a Thanksgiving themed post without a picture of a camera-trapped, wild turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

A Puddle with A Purpose

A small puddle at the edge of a pond does a lot for the local wildlife.

Great blue herons use it to find their food...

 

Fox squirrels walk near it... Look at the size of those arms and muscles!  I cropped the image so you could be see the little guy.





 

White-tailed deer drink from the puddle...





And raccoons also use it to find their food.

 

The puddle offers a lot to the animals.  For now though, the camera is being moved to a new location.  I'll revisit the puddle with cameras in another month or so.



Woodpecker Identification

Here's a post that comes from the Chantilly/Centreville area of Fairfax County, Virginia.  There's a lot of land in these places, both public and private, where I am camera-trapping.

The camera was originally placed to see the medium-sized to large mammals roaming around, but another species flew by and landed right in the camera's view.

It's a new species for me (at least for my camera trapping), but the problem is, I don't know what species this is.

It's either a downy woodpecker or a hairy woodpecker, but which?

Whenever I have questions about species I first try to identify it myself.  This is tough on this one, so I emailed and texted the pictures to my colleagues that have jobs and experiences such as birders, wildlife biologists, natural resource managers, and naturalists.

Some of them say hairy woodpecker, others say downy woodpecker.  So far, all of us think it is one of the two, but conversations of sapsuckers have also arisen.

I'd really like to solve this mystery.

Other important information that may be necessary to note is that the camera's date stamp is incorrect, and that this was in Fairfax, Virginia.  The correct date stamp should read, "11-19-2013".  The pictures in this post are the only pictures I captured of it.

What bird is this?

Comments below are greatly appreciated.

Beaver Signs

It was hard to miss these signs of beavers along the Potomac River.  I counted 65 trees in total that were chewed on or damaged by beavers.

The power of their jaws and durability of their teeth amaze me.

 

You better believe that I put up a camera near these trees.



Piebald Deer Again

Everyone seems to enjoy looking at the video that I posted recently of the piebald buck.  People have emailed and told me that they want to see more.

Also, in some workplace environments, streaming video online is not allowed or blocked completely.  I figured I would take some snapshots of the video and put them in this post so that more people could enjoy them.

Woolly Bear Predictions

They say that you can predict the harshness of the upcoming winter by looking at the brown and black bands on a woolly bear.

Which of these woolly bears am I supposed to believe though?

I took these a few days ago in Leesburg, Va. 

 

To me, this critters aren't any sort of reliable weather predicting source.

 

The talk around Loudoun and Fairfax Counties has been snow for the past few days.  We haven't had any yet this season, but it is supposedly in the forecast for next week.

Nobody knows for certain of course.

If it does snow, camera-trapping will still continue.  There's no doubt about that.

Piebald Buck

Undisclosed Location, Loudoun County, Virginia.

A piebald buck is a male deer that has a different colored coat than most other white-tailed deer.  It contains white splotches, patches, or markings and sticks out like a sore thumb in the woods.  It is a rarity among most white-tailed deer populations.

I've dedicated a few cameras to get photographs of piebald deer in locations where they have been seen in Great Falls, Virginia, but did not expect to see one at all when I checked a camera in Loudoun County. 

Such a beautiful deer!