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!
Bobcats, beavers, coyotes, and more!
The month of December brought snow… then melt… then snow… then melt. The wildlife in my little area of Lyme’s forest were busy… the deer were seeking food among the remnants of summer’s bounty, the squirrels were looking for long-lost acorns, the beavers were rebuilding one section of their dam only to find other sections breached in late-December rains. The foxes, coyotes, and bobcats were on the prowl, hoping to capture one of the above. Check out this month’s video for more! Sit back and relax for just six minutes.
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.
So much to share this month!
November was a busy month in the forests of Lyme, New Hampshire… especially evident because I doubled the number of cameras in late October. Last week, I shared fun video of beavers captured next to one of their dams along a brook near home. Well, beavers weren’t the only visitors to this brook! Today I share two short videos: one showcasing the variety of other critters that follow the beaver’s trail, and the other highlighting animals that cross the brook further downstream.
In this first video, taken alongside a game trail the busy beavers created while dragging trees down to the stream, you’ll see a puzzled buck, a curious raccoon, a busy mouse, and… a special guest. Don’t miss the special guest! and read on for a second video.
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”Partial eclipse of a harvest ‘supermoon’.
Last night we arrived home from almost three weeks of international travel just minutes before the beginning of a lunar ‘supermoon’ eclipse. The cloudless sky was dark and the moon had just risen over the hill to our east, bright and full. I quickly reconfigured my camera from our travels through sunny Japanese gardens into settings suitable for photographing the full moon, and captured a few shots as the partial eclipse began, and then peaked at 10:44 EDT. Below is a photo during peak, when the top of the moon was darkened by earth’s shadow.
It was a calm, cool evening, and I stood in the driveway for about twenty minutes enjoying the growing eclipse. While I watched, I listened to the local coyote family howling at the moon, somewhere on the far side of the hill. Closer at hand, in the shadows to my south, I heard the alarm call of a white-tailed deer: a high-pitched snort while leaping away from an imagined predator. Meanwhile my cat, Sebastian, wove his way lazily around my ankles, equally happy to be spending an evening in the moonlight.
See the gallery of three photos – at full resolution, you can see even more detail.
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.
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!
New cameras and exciting footage!
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!
David Kotz 