Wildlife camera – owl in the tree

Back in February I noticed some tracks and signs in the snow beneath a big ol’ tree. Looking up, I could see a big hole in the tree, about 25′ up; it sure looked like a nice place to build a nest. So I set up two cameras there: one at the base of the tree – which has led to some pretty cool videos of fisher, coyote, bobcat, and more – and another high in a neighboring tree so I could record any activity in that high-up hole. The picture below is the view from that camera. I’ve gotten a lot of video from that camera, but all of it was simply from the wind blowing the trees back and forth. Until now! Read on.

In the middle of March, late one evening, an Owl landed in that hole, and spent time doing something face-down [video]. What do you think it was doing? About six hours later, in the wee hours of the next morning, another critter appeared to be looking out from the hole. It’s hard to tell, in the over-exposed light from the camera; what might it be?

Several weeks later I had time to visit and I wanted to see inside the hole. I could not reach the hole with my ladder, nor climb the tree. So I rigged up my iPhone to a GorillaPod (flexible tripod), attached it to a tree-trimming pole, and raised the pole up to look inside. (Being very careful not to drop the phone into the hole!) So… what did I see? Watch to the end of the video!