Favorite photos and videos.
Wow, 2024 was quite the year. With a dozen or more hikes in New Hampshire, and travels to Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, California, South Carolina, and India, I had many opportunities for photography. Check out some of my favorite photos!
Final installment of clips from my wildlife cameras in November.
I recently doubled the number of cameras I have posted in strategic locations in a nearby forest of Lyme, New Hampshire. Last week I shared my first video of beavers, busy collecting trees and repairing their dams; then some video of other visitors to that same brook. Today I return to my traditional stomping grounds, where we get to see who was roaming that hill… the steep/rocky east side, the flat hilltop, and the vernal pool (now dry) on the west side. The video opens with a view of a beautiful canine, provides two angles on a mature buck (with unusual markings, whom we saw in this location last month), startles us with a one-eared black bear (shouldn’t he be asleep by now?), and ends with a flock of turkeys. I left out most of the (many) deer, and the deer hunters 😉 Check out the video, and read on for more information about the canine.
Spoiler alert: Not all the cameras survived!
September was a busy month in the forests of Lyme New Hampshire, as the foliage started to turn and forest residents began their preparations for winter. This month I’m organizing the videos by location – with each video mostly in chronological order. It’s interesting to see the variety of animals that pass by a given point – sometimes within minutes of each other. I captured first-looks at two species I’ve never seen on camera before: a solo flying squirrel, and a group of strolling crows, both foraging among the leaf litter. Unfortunately, one of my cameras did not survive the month! Read on.
Continue reading “Wildlife cameras – September”A weekly ritual.
I currently have six wildlife cameras in a hillside forest near home. Every week or two I take a walk, from one side of the hill, over the top, and down the other side, stopping to check each camera along the way. I enjoy the opportunity to be alone in the forest, off trail. I pick my own path, following my own sense of direction, recognizing familiar landmarks like a particular fallen tree, a fern-filled glade, or a notable boulder. I scan the forest floor for fresh tracks, listen for birdsong or the crackle of branches, and just immerse myself in the experience. I find it intellectually interesting and spiritually restorative – and a good workout, climbing up and down the steep hillside. Read on for the video!
Continue reading “Lyme wildlife – a walk in the forest”August treats us to bears, coyotes, a bathing owl, and more!
I woke at 2am to the howls of the coyotes, and they sounded close. It’s increasingly common for us to hear coyotes near our home, but in 33 years living in New Hampshire I’ve only once seen a coyote in-person. (They are mostly noctural, and I am not!) As noted in my post from June, I was thrilled when my wildlife camera caught a daylight video with a litter of coyote pups visiting a vernal pool. So, as I lay awake listening to the coyotes last night, I imagined those little pups were out there now, learning the ways of their pack, and wondered whether they might be in view of of one of my cameras.
Indeed my cameras brought us many exciting treats in August: a pack of coyotes, many views of both mama and papa bear (and baby bears too!), a fastidious barred owl, a nosy skunk, and more.
July edition of captures from my wildlife cameras in the forests of Lyme. Squirrel, bear, deer, and raccoons.
July was a quiet month for my wildlife cameras – but resulted in some interesting video captures! Mid-month I shared the fun close-up view of a black bear, who used my camera as a back-scratcher. Now, I share a video compendium… a cute squirrel grooming himself, a busy raccoon moving through the woods overnight, a black bear that gets frighteningly close, a series of deer (including a young buck), and a pair of mischievous raccoons!
A black bear finds a new use for my wildlife camera.
Earlier this month one of my busiest camera locations encountered a black bear who had an itch to scratch. See the video, up close and personal!
New surprises!
My wildlife cameras have been busy this month! With the return of spring, I placed a camera back down by the riverside… and started capturing the daily visits of a couple of Canada Geese and their brood of little goslings. As the weeks wore by, the goslings grew bigger… and fewer. (We started with four, then three, then two.) They were fun to watch, but the really cool stuff came later. Read on!
Watch spring arrive in New Hampshire!
As regular readers know, I have placed several wildlife cameras in a forest near home, and have captured many enjoyable videos of wildlife like deer, bear, fox, coyote, bobcat, turkey, and more. The same cameras can be set to capture photos on a regular schedule, which can later be stitched into a timelapse video. Back in March, a few days before the spring equinox, I placed a camera at the edge of what I knew to be a vernal pool; this month, a few days after the summer solstice, I removed the camera. The camera snapped an image every five minutes from sunrise to sunset, resulting in 14,697 images. Watch the pool evolve from a snowy landscape into a lush fern-filled glade. Watch the heavy snow of March 23 lay its burden on the branches, and then watch those branches relax on March 23 and 25; watch the pool freeze and then re-thaw; watch the April 4th snowstorm bury the pool once again; watch snow melt and the grasses stretch toward the April sun; watch the ferns unfurl into the May sunshine. Below is an abbreviated timelapse, one photo per day at noon. See the full-res noon-time video (1 minute), and the full-length video (10 minutes). If you watch very, very closely, you might see a animal or two.
Five cameras in the forest.
As spring turns into summer, my wildlife cameras have been busy. I have five cameras out in the forest – one capturing a timelapse and four using motion triggers to capture passing wildlife. After the exciting encounter with momma bear (and two cubs) early in the month, as noted in my earlier post, I did not see her again for almost three weeks. This month’s video highlights a variety of animals and locations, mostly in chronological order: turkey, deer, raccoon, porcupine, a teeny mouse, … and yes, momma bear, who returns to fiddle with my cameras once again.
