Camera-Trapping Program

I'll make this one short and sweet!

In March of this year, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy will be hosting program titled "Wildlife Camera-Trapping Program and Field Trip".

Location:  Morven Park,  Leesburg, Virginia
Date:  March 7, 2015
Time:  2 P.M.
What to bring:  Hiking boots or shoes that can get muddy.

You are all invited come to this FREE program where I will be speaking about local camera-trapping projects, ecology, citizen science, and northern Virginia's natural world.

There will of course be an outdoor field portion of this program.

Did I mention it's FREE?!

You can sign up here :  Wildlife Camera-Trapping Program .

Hope to see you there!

'Tis the Season

The fall rut has started in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties in Virginia.  What this means is that the deer are biologically ready to start mating and bucks are chasing does all day long.

What this also means is that deer are moving around a hell of a lot, and are getting creamed on the roads.  This deer was (at least I presume) hit by a car and dropped dead.  Of course I did the only thing I could think of, and put a camera-trap up to it.

Foxes, raccoons, and possums picked at it at night, and birds had their way with the meat during the day.

I really enjoy looking at images of hawks that scavenge on the dead deer, and was lucky enough to get images of them during this camera-trap stakeout.

Ignore those time/date stamps.  I forgot to set them correctly.

Enjoy!

Hawks can scavenge on carcasses during anytime of the year, but on my cameras, the show up a lot more on deer carcasses during the winter than on deer carcasses of the hot months.

'Tis the season for deer carcass cameras, birding, hunting, the deer rut, and winter sports.  We're in for it until April, folks.

Hummingbirds

Due to an incredible amount of camera-trap theft, I've lost an even more amount of data and images this year.  The thing is, is that hunting season has started in most of the counties where I camera-trap, and the woods have a whole different kind of visitor.  I've also taken a lot of cameras down to prevent them from getting stolen.

Don't worry though, I'm back to blogging right now and am carefully planning on where I am going to put out more cameras.

In the meantime, here are a few images of hummingbirds that were caught on a GoPro camera trap that I put up a few weeks ago.

I like the versatility of the GoPro cameras for my wildlife surveys and of course, just for fun.  I haven't perfected the quality control and everything of them yet, but I'm getting there.

Hopefully the next blog post will be of more camera-trap images.

Woof Woof!

Clearly I underestimated the amount of human/dog activity at this place.

I was hoping that this camera would be safe from man and man's best friend, but boy was I surprised when an intern emailed me some pictures today.  The camera was in a protected nature preserve that I won't name (for now) well away from any trail.

It's time to move that camera!

Fox and Go Pro

Just like the title says, see what happens when I put one of the Go Pro cameras down for a few minutes near a red fox.

It definitely gets a bit too curious for my comfort, and am glad it didn't run off with the camera.

No bait, scent, or lure was used at all.

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.

Summer Fawn

Spring is done and summer is upon the people and wildlife of Virginia.  We've had a couple of really hot and humid days here already, and today wasn't much of an exception.

The heat has begun, and the white-tailed does are out in full force eating grasses in meadows and tomato plants in your suburban garden.  

That's alright though because the does are working hard to produce enough nourishment for the fawns that have recently been born.

Even though northern Virginia has a ridiculous amount of white-tailed deer, it still is always satisfying to see fawns growing up throughout the rest of the year.

No Surprise

Usually I have absolutely no idea what will be recorded on a camera-trap's SD card each time I check it, but sometimes I can tell exactly what will probably come up on some of the images.

This happens in the case of skunks.  Naturally, I have a very strong nose, which I consider to be a very good thing for working in parks and wildlife.  Skunks leave a trail of stink wherever they go and have gotten pretty darn good at tracking and trailing them.

I knew exactly what I was going to find on the camera's SD card this time, because as soon as I got close to the camera, I could smell the skunk spray from the previous night.

Here's a photo of the mini stinker.

Do Hawks Scavenge In Winter?

The simple answer to the title question is: Yes, hawks scavenge in winter.  In fact, winter is the only time that I have gotten camera-trap images of hawks scavenging.

I'm not saying that hawks don't ever scavenge in other times of the year, but I find it really interesting how often they do in the winter months.

This red-shouldered hawk is just absolutely beautiful.  It came up to a deer carcass and didn't seem to mind the crows that were also there.   The crows didn't seem to mind the hawk there, and they all ate without fighting at all.

The above picture is another red-shouldered hawk at a different camera that I put out.  These cameras were about a quarter mile apart.  Could this be the same hawk?

Here are a few other pictures of it.  The pictures are a bit blurry due to condensation on the lense.

A Friend of White Legs

"We got white legs!!!!" was the text I received from another fellow camera-trapper in Great Falls, Virginia.  Excitement was evident.

We had in fact, camera-trapped White Legs, the red fox.  The saga continues!

Read the other posts about White Legs here:  White Legs . White Legs Returns

This time, White Legs met up with a friend.  You can see another fox there in the background.  Could this be just a friendly meet up?  Or is one of the foxes a female, pushing our chances of fox kits up this upcoming spring?

White Legs made a good amount of appearances at the camera this time.  Everyone seems to know and love this fox.

My co-workers enjoy the images, my volunteers and interns love checking the camera where it always seems to be, and the human neighbors just can't seem to get enough of White Legs. 

Everyone is under strict orders not to feed this fox to see it.  It's illegal to feed foxes in Virginia anyway, but everyone around the home of White Legs still has gone through a 2 minute long speech on why they shouldn't feed it.

This one is one of my favorites so far.

Enjoy your Friday, folks!

Rainy Day Picture Viewing

It's a typical rainy, fall day here in northern Virginia.  I've been up all morning homeworking and getting things done.  Now, it's time to blog!

I've had a bit of time to catch up on viewing the camera-trap images from the past few months. 

Here's one that's a bit tough.  This image comes from the town of Great Falls, Virginia.

I think it's a coyote because of the size, the lighter-colored legs, the presence of thick fur, and because of the short, black-tipped tail.

Here's an image of a raccoon in the same, general area.  Use this for the size comparison.

What do you think?

I'm pretty confident with my coyote answer, but I could be wrong.

Gray Fox Territory

There's no mistaking this animal on a camera.  It is no doubt a gray fox.  The black stripe on the tail, the gray coat, and the size are all indicators of what carnivore this is.

Just like all other foxes around the area, grays eat small mammals that they find running around meadows and forests.  Grays have the ability to climb trees unlike most of foxes.  I wouldn't say they are as good at climbing as cats, but they do it from time to time.

This is one of my favorite camera locations.  It is decently far away from where I live and have other cameras, so I only get to check it once every 6 weeks, or even longer. 

The drive to get to it is nice, and the property owners love seeing the pictures, so it is well worth it for me to keep the camera there.  If you're curious to know where it is, all I can tell you is that the camera is located in Lucketts, Virginia.

Here's another picture (of the infrared variety) of a gray fox in the same location.

Deer also showed up a lot and have been the most common animal on this camera.

 

7 Raccoons

Usually I don't enjoy raccoon images that come up after every time camera-traps are checked since I get so many of them, but these images are unusual.  There are 7 raccoons in the pictures.  I've never seen this many on camera before.  

They're all hanging out and feasting on the remains of a deer that I found at that exact spot.  They could also be eating the massive amount of insects that are feasting on the deer remains.  Either way, it's interesting to see so many raccoons.

These pictures are only 2 of the 9,800 that I have to check soon.

Thanks For The Extra Help

This one goes out to the people who have helped me out the most with my outdoor and wildlife endeavors. This blog has so much more in store for you and for the rest of the world

Thanks to my parents for giving me advice on where to put cameres.  Through many walks in the same lands that I camera-trap in, they see things that I don't see.  They have also given me materials, helped with the building of things, given great advice, and even gave me my own camera-trap as a Christmas gift last Christmas.

Thanks to all the volunteers who regularly check cameras, record data, and give me company on hikes and walks to the cameras.  It's really nice getting out with everyone on the trails but also seeing the excitement through emails when we share photos and data.

Thanks to my fellow employees for telling me about every animal they see on a daily basis and for being interested in what I am doing.  Thanks to them for the great advice on where to put cameras, for helping me drag canoes and row-boats to good camera-trap areas, and for giving me even more connections to local public land managers where I am able to do this research in.

Thanks to some of my professors in college who have wildlife, biology, or anatomy backgrounds.  The experience that they bring to my research and hobby of camera-trapping is infectious and helps drastically.

Thanks to homeowners that border the areas where cameras are located.  These people live right there with the animals that I see.  Without their tips and stories, camera-trapping would be a little less interesting and more difficult.  The best stories come from  the people who have had their garbage cans raided by bears, trash thrown by raccoons, and driveways bombarded with scat of all types.

Thanks to the homeowners who let me put up cameras on their property.  Most of the work I do with the cameras is in local parks and public lands, but for my own cameras, I like to search around the area and ask people I know if I can put on up on their land just to see what's lurking where they live.

Thanks to the park managers who give me permission to use cameras on the properties they manage.  Going to all these parks is a thrilling experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.  Thanks to them for being so interested in what I'm doing, for the advice, the park stories that range from bear sightings to risque teenager encounters in the woods, and for the permissions to use vehicles to access the cameras easier.  It's a great experience to hike around to all the cameras so that I can see more things along the way, but in a time crunch or a day that takes me to 3 or more parks, a vehicle for trails is necessary.  I have checked cameras by means of kayaks, canoes, a powerboat, an atv, numerous golf carts, John Deere gators, trail vehicles, cars, vans, pickup trucks, and even a mountain bike that one of the parks owns.

Thanks to other camera-trappers and wildlife researchers who have brought a whole wealth of information regarding trail cameras, animals, lands, weather, terrain, and general research techniques.

Thanks to other bloggers in the wildlife and outdoors fields.  It's tough to keep up with so many different blogs but I have a select few that I read on an almost daily basis.  Also thanks to local bloggers, whether you write about wildlife or not, I have such an interest in what you have to say about the community that I live in.

Thanks to my grandparents and family who support the blog and are regular visitors.  Thanks to my friends as well, I hope you all have begun to catch some type of wildlife fever with me.

And thanks to you, the blog reader.  Without you, why would I even be writing all this?  Thanks for supporting the blog, for the comments, the advice, the arguments you bring to the table, the interest, and the views to this website.  Writing this blog for the past few months has been an incredible experience and I'm glad that I get to share it with you and the world.

I can't wait to see what the camera-traps and outdoors have in store next for the me.  Keep checking back and you will see what most people in the area don't get to see at all.