The Ants Go Marching

A coworker helped me with some cameras today and found one completely covered in ants.

Upon closer inspection, ants had completely invaded the entire interior of the camera-trap.  We spent a good hour opening up the camera, unscrewing screws, cleaning it out, and putting it back together.

We completed our "Camera-Trap Surgery" in the field as we swatted away maybe 25 mosquitoes and picked off ticks of our legs.  The ants had made an entire food storage type of room in the camera along with an egg holding cell.  It was rough, but we managed to save the camera and found that no electrical components had been badly damaged.

We checked the SD card on a laptop in the field as well, but only found a few pictures of a red fox and raccoons.

But hey, you can't win with bears, coyotes, and other "crowd pleasers" every day.  It was still a good day out on the trails, and I thank him greatly for helping me today.

Bluemont Camera Gets Taken Down

The camera that was in Bluemont is now sitting on my counter at home.  It needs new batteries, a few tests, and a new location.

It did well in the mountains, enduring all of the spring's heavy winds and rains. 

There's nothing wrong with it though.  It's just time for a move.

This is the camera that provided me with a few bear pictures (see More Bears), and many pictures of raccoons.

The woods around are now full of fruits, especially raspberries and wineberries.  The main mission was to take down this camera, but a pit stop into the berry bushes seemed also necessary.

I gorged and had more than my fair share.  A bag was also needed to take more home.

It was a game of duck and dodge as I was working carefully to avoid thorns, flies, and poison ivy while picking.  The big scare though came when the bushes started rumbling about 15 yards away from me.

Just being in these bushes full of food puts me a little on edge in bear territory.

A deer huffed and darted towards an even lower thicket.  I'm glad it wasn't a bear that close to me.  Berry picking resumed, and after a fair amount were in my stomach and bag, I scrambled out of the thorny bushes and headed up a rocky slope to get to where the car was parked.