My favorite thing is just walking in the woods. I can do it for days on end without tiring of it.
~Jim Harrison
This may be why I can’t get to all the posts I need to write about prior adventures…interesting things keep happening here in our woods. We were gone for several days and I checked our trail cameras when we returned and found some special captures. This time of year it is usually a lot of deer and squirrels. I was hoping to see the first fawn of the year and, indeed, one walked feebly in front of a camera on June 1. I think it was born that day by the looks of its wobbly walk.
–The first fawn of the year – June 1. And such a tiny one!
A couple of birds made their guest appearance on the cameras. Both seem to be eating something rather small…cicadas perhaps?
–Our first trail camera capture of a Barred Owl. Not sure what it has (or missed).
One camera caught a Red-tailed Hawk in roughly the same place on two different days. Both times were similar behaviors – landing, gobbling up something small, pausing, and then flying off.
–A Red-tailed Hawk snatching up something small, perhaps a cicada.
I’m always hoping to see Coyotes on the cameras so this past week really came through in that department. Several single Coyotes trotting by a camera in the dim light of dawn or dusk, and then a couple of captures with two or more in daylight.
The biggest thrill came on one of my most active camera sites, where a ravine opens up onto the intermittent creek bed flood plain. It is a group of Coyotes, at least 8 including a number of pups. I think I see 3 adults (the lead is ol “one ear” and she was the lactating female seen on camera back in April) and 5 pups, but it could be 4 and 4 since we have recorded 4 adults on one camera in the past. I wish them well and good hunting…perhaps they can help keep the deer population in check a bit and help control the groundhogs which have recently entered our community (and are really tough to keep out of garden spaces).
Roads End Naturalist 