During mid-terms week, I was getting out of school very early and my friends weren't available. I took a walk and set both of my cams on the 19th. The P40 and SL122 pro. I put one in a swamp near my house, and one in the Pine Grove (a small patch of pine forest in between Water St. and Potter Rd.)
I have been putting my cameras in the pine grove since the beginning of December. It has provided photos of a Raccoon Pair, Coyote Pair, Whitetail Doe, and Fishers. The canopy has been ruled by a mated pair of Great Horned Owls for 2+ years. There are also two abandoned coyote dens that I have found. My most recent post of trail cam photos from the Pine Grove is linked here: Nighttime In The Pine Grove
I mounted it on a young Eastern Hemlock, growing a spot with very thick new pine growth. I think the thick growth of plants will be too much of an obstacle for deer. My two target species were, Fisher, and Eastern Coyotes. I more specifically hoped to get photos of the mated pair who control the area. There were raccoon tracks in the snow right there when I set it up, so i'll almost definitively get a couple pics of them. For bait I used an apple, popping corn, corn syrup, and a chunk of butter.
When I checked, five days later, these were the results:
An Eastern Coyote arrives on the scene. I think this one may have mild Sarcoptic Mange. The same mite-borne illness that the coyote at Juniper Hill had. It still has a lot more fur than the other one, though. With the lighting, this coyote almost looks white, which I think looks cool. I think this is the one seen with it's mate in the post linked above.
In the video, the coyote returns to quickly snatch the apple. I actually got 30+ videos and pictures of the Coyote, but the ones above are the best photo and best video, in my opinion. Some people may be wondering why a coyote would want to eat an apple. Coyotes, along with wolves, foxes and bobcats are actually omnivores. Yes, they get most of their protein and fat from meat, but they do like the vitamins, sugar, and small amounts of fat found in fruit. In the fall, I left out smashed pumpkins, hoping for deer, but the Coyotes surprisingly devoured it, and no deer showed up.
...a Grey Squirrel seemed to like the corn kernels. It is probably sniffing around like that because it smells the coyote: one of it's biggest natural predators. There was lots of media of the squirrel as well. I usually don't show footage of squirrels, because we see them every day, and they're boring, but I have been showing them lately for transparency. I don't only want to show the big predators and bucks, because the reality is that probably half my photos are of rodents and small birds...
...That's the end of this post. I hope you learned something or enjoyed my photos and videos.
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Very nice!
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