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.



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.

Kayak Camera: Trip 2

Wow, I'm beat.  I've basically spent the whole day either working on the river, kayaking for fun alone, or kayaking with friends.  The camera-traps have hopefully been working hard lately, so I have taken my mind off of most of them for the past day or two.  Today was dedicated to the Potomac River.

The wee hours of the morning have been calling my name lately.  I was up and at it at 5:30 in the morning to see the sunrise on the river while on a kayak.

I hit the water just as the sun had come up over a ridge on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  There was another man taking out a nice bass boat nearby so I said hello and paddled onward.

The point of getting out this early was to  not only see the sun rise over the river, but to just relax alone before the work day started. This sunrise just happened to be the earliest of all sunrises because of it being the day of the summer solstice.

I completed 12 laps from Virginia to Maryland and back and paddled a little upriver to an island to take a short break.

Silt and dirt were still in the river from rains a few days ago, but the river was flowing at a decent pace.  Cormorants, great blue herons, bald eagles, baltimore orioles, and mergansers were doing their usual calls and activities at this time.

Common mergansers showing their summer colors:  a rusty-reddish head and a gray body

I drifted and paddled back to the Virginia shore where I was greeted by a raccoon messing around with some leftovers in a trash can near the boat ramp.  Clapping didn't make it budge so I got a little closer and yelled at it.  It ran up a tree and gave me a few glares before coming down and disappearing into the woods.

Camera-Trapped Owl and Others

Here's a lucky picture that I recently got.

I had absolutely no idea that an owl would come near this camera.  It's probably dumb luck that it just happened to sit on that small log in front of the camera.  The date stamp on this camera should once again be ignored since it is wrong.

Other visitors included a night-time turkey and a daytime raccoon.

This week, I'm fairly busy with work, but am planning on making it out to Lucketts, Va to put up a camera on a new piece of property.  There are also plans to do another trip out to Leesburg, Va to check cameras and deploy 4 more cameras, fix the otter den camera in Great Falls, Va, and possibly (if there is any time at all left), head back out to Bluemont, Va to check the bear camera once again.

Sterling, Va cameras will be checked next week along with 2 more Great Falls cameras in a meadow.  The latter part of next week will be spent working and checking 2 cameras that I set out in Arlington, Va.

 

Animal House

When there is no human supervision in an old, abandoned building, who would you expect to come in and party?

If you guessed rats, mice, and raccoons, then you are correct.  However, you are only beginning to touch the tip of the iceberg that is the full answer.

See what critters came into an old building that I put a camera into a few weeks ago by scrolling below.

Gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) came by on many occasions and was the most common visitor.

Some kind of mouse.  I cannot tell what species this is for the life of me.  It's hard to see.  Can you see it? Here's a hint:  small mammal in the middle of the picture a little to the right.

Black vultures (Coragyps atratus) stopped in to take a look a few times during the week.

Raccoons (Procyon lotor) of course.  But not just any raccoons. . . 

Mating Raccoons!  Right in the middle of the frame of the camera.

A feral cat (Felis catus) stopped in to take a look but didn't stay for long at all.

Last but not least, a Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana).

I was surprised at the amount of animals that came in, and I was really only expecting rats, mice, and raccoons. 

There’s still an incredible amount of hope that I have, that I will get a picture of a resident owl swooping down to catch a squirrel or mouse in the same frame as these other animals.  That kind of picture inside a building is going to take a lot more patience on my part. 

But hey, these results were way better than I expected for a small, old building.  

Deer for Dinner: Food Fights

Even red-tailed hawks couldn't pass up the opportunity to check out some free venison. 

While camera trapping,  I am always on the lookout for new game trails, dens, scrapes or sights, but there is almost nothing more valuable to a camera trapper than a carcass.  Carcasses are a surefire way to see what carnivores are around the area and who is hungry in the woods.

 This deer was no exception. Gray foxes, red foxes, feral cats, hawks, and raccoons all came to pay respects to their lost member of the wild, and to devour her guts.  

The "Food Fights" at this site were intensive standoffs between species.  Fox vs. fox became really interesting with foxes always standing up to bat each other's paws like kittens.  

Feral cat vs. fox even surprised me.  Obviously a fox can easily put a cat in its place, but this cat was persistent to the goal of scoring some food.  The cat and fox circled around the deer for over 3 minutes before lunging at one another.  One lunge was all it took though for the cat to realize it was no match for a dog relative.

Raccoons vs. foxes were quite intense.  Every time there was more than a single raccoon already at the deer,        foxes would take a few extra minutes to sniff out and check the scene more closely.  The two different animals battled at least 4 times in 13 days.

The foxes were victorious in 3 out of the 4 battles.

The dead deer was a productive site with 2 placed cameras and over 3,000 pictures in a period of 2 weeks. It's all skin and bones now but this site is my favorite camera trap site so far.