Wildlife camera – February

As you may recall from my prior blog post, I purchased and deployed two more wildlife cameras, allowing me to explore several interesting locations simultaneously. I quickly captured some exciting video of a fisher, a small but fearsome predator I’ve never truly seen in the wild. The new cameras were blurry, and flaky; after numerous iterations with tech support they sent me two new cameras. So I have lots of video to share this month! Check out this new video of the fisher, nice and clear. Later, watch the deer sniff my camera.
Read on, though, for the most exciting video!

At that same location, the older (blurry) camera caught an exciting scene… two bobcats walking by mid-afternoon on the first day of February. Despite the blur, it seems likely to be a female and a male. It wasn’t until two weeks later that I replaced the camera and captured that lovely fisher mentioned above. I think you’ll see that same fisher, and one of those same bobcats, show up in the next story…:

One day I was striding up the steep slope toward the hilltop, on my usual route, and noticed something new: on the snow, at the base of a large tree, many tidbits of wood and bark had clearly fallen from high above. Nearby the fresh powder snow had been compressed by some animal, perhaps laying there briefly alongside the trail. Looking up, I noticed a huge hole in the tree, about 3m above ground… and I wondered whether some critter lives there? Sensing a new opportunity, I installed a camera near the base of the tree, and adjusted its location a week later. Wow! The results were fascinating (if blurry, because it was one of the faulty cameras). Check out the video; it’s a little longer than my usual videos, but there’s a lot to see! Because this location is “just around the corner” from the hilltop trail seen in so many of my videos, you’ll see some shots of an animal as it strides over that hilltop, and then minutes later at this mysterious tree. Hint: one of those animals is this one:

In other news, I finally caught something interesting at a small hole in the hillside. I’ve been walking past this hole for years, wondering who might live in that burrow. Sometimes, in winter, I notice a fringe of frost around the hole, making me think there is a critter hibernating (and respirating) inside. This month I finally discovered who lives there – a skunk! He comes out only at night, so the video is all black and white. He scratches around in the leaf litter looking for… I’m not sure what. His burrow is at center, but slightly out of sight due to the camera angle.

I’m sure the month of March will grant me many more interesting tidbits!