Raccoon selfie

This week’s trail cam feature.

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The hay is cut

The hay was cut today, which means that this week’s trail cam pics could be very interesting. Cutting hay generally is an attractant to predators and scavengers that come looking for things that got cut up in the blades of the machines.

 

 

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The babies grow

The ducklings of many colors have continued to thrive.

 

 

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Into the brooder

The little duck I found in the weeds didn’t do so well on the water. It wouldn’t forage and swim with the rest of the clutch. It probably didn’t imprint very well on its mother, because an egg was seen in the nest early yesterday after the others had moved to the pond. This morning there was no egg. 

That means that this one was a late hatcher.

My dad managed to catch the duck with a snow shovel on the pond, and it’s now in the brooder to recuperate.

It hasn’t eaten yet, but it’s no longer shivering.

 

 

We’ll see how it goes.

 

 

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Third time’s the charm

 

 

Three times this duck has set on the nest. And twice it has ended in the nest being burgled.

But this third time she hid her nest really well, deep in the tall grass.

And now we have babies!

 

Of many colors!

Phil has flown the coop, but these are his children.

Yesterday, there were five, but this morning when I went out to take pics, there was a cheeping sound in the tall grass near the nest.

After digging around a bit in the grass, I found some down. 

And the down moved.

And I pulled this thing out of the grass:

 

I got it back with the rest.

 

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An old opossum

This old opossum is a survivor. It looks like it even has a bit of frost bite on the ears from last winter.

 

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Ninja bear

I estimate the bear was on film less than a half hour after I set the camera.

I have never seen this bear or any other bear in person on this access road, so they must be very good at reading people.

Which is wise.

Black bears are known for their intelligence, and this one tries to avoid walking in the mud where it would leave tracks.

Also, it’s very easy to see how a black bear could give someone the idea for bigfoot.  Like humans, bears are plantigrade. Their heels touch the ground when they walk.

So if anything could give you an idea of wild man living in the forest, it would be one of these stealthy black bears.

 

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How I will remember Robin Williams

This video:

Source.

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Urocyon on a Saturday night

Buoyed by the bear that came out on the trail cam this week, I set out a fresh bait of sardines.

And I got a gray fox on the camera last night.

Gray foxes are actually the last survivors of a lineage of North American dogs that diverged from the rest of the dog family 9 to 10 million years ago.

They aren’t really “foxes” in the same way red foxes, arctic foxes, and swift foxes are.

The gray fox, which I think should just be called Urocyon (their genus name, which means “tailed dog,” a very apt name!), are ecologically like the European wildcat. They live on small mammals, birds, and reptiles, and unlike other dogs, readily to take to the trees to forage for food and avoid predators.

Finding a gray fox here means that I probably won’t be getting any red foxes on the camera. Gray foxes dominate reds, and coyotes eat them. With coyotes and gray foxes in the same area, my guess is that no red fox could live here without constant persecution.

 

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I didn’t get a coyote on the trail this week

Just a raccoon out frogging:

And this little creature:

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