Life keeps moving, even when you can’t watch.

~Unknown

While we have been busy on the road and having all sorts of appointments, the creatures of our woods continue with their busy lives. The trail cameras have recorded a lot of the usual suspects – deer, squirrels, and coyotes. But it is always fascinating to see what these denizens of our forest are up to. Turn your sound up and view at full size.

I currently have 7 trail cameras out on the landscape, All are Browning cameras. I have 4 different models out there as I purchased them at different times as new models wth features I wanted became available. I think I have had 4 cameras die on me, but one of my originals (now about 4 years old) is still going strong. It has somewhat lower resolution video and has one distracting feature, at least from the perspective of certain animals…it has a tiny blinking red light when it is on. Most species either ignore this or quickly get used to it. But many carnivores like coyotes, bobcats, and foxes, are quite wary of this light as seen in their behavior when they get near one.

–A healthy coyote reacts to the blinking light on my oldest camera. It seems they do eventually get used to it but it may take quite a while. I think this is one of the newer resident coyotes so it is still spooked by this camera.

I have all my cameras set up to record a maximum of 30 seconds of video and then they shut off. If the animal is still there and moving, the camera starts recording after 5 seconds and that cycle repeats until there is no longer any movement. Night recordings are only 20 seconds in length by design. This coyote did something that doesn’t happen very often in front of a camera – it stopped and stood there for a long time. After a few minutes it jumped off the log and trotted off.

–A gorgeous coyote pauses on a large fallen log and surveys the scene

That log has been a hot spot of coyote activity these past two weeks. Here is one of the few clips where three coyotes pass through, seemingly on a mission (as they most always seem to be)

–Three coyotes trotting by the big log. I think this is the new group in our woods..

The log is also a favorite path for raccoons, squirrels, birds, and an occasional special guest.

–A fox daintily crosses the log.

Here’s a question for everyone. A couple of posts back I had a clip of probably this same fox. I called it a gray fox in that post because I didn’t see the typical white tail tip of a red fox. But now I’m just not sure. The dark front legs and the seemingly uniform color of the main body makes me think it may be a red fox with almost no white on its tail tip. Gray foxes usually have a dark tail tip which I also don’t see. The night time videos don’t relay colors so I have to use other clues. Please put any thoughts you may have in the comments.

A camera on a tree along the creek bed keeps track of another favorite pathway for wildlife.

–Another coyote pause, but this one was quicker.

As I mentioned, there is a new coyote crew in our woods. They appeared a few months ago. One-ear and her mate had been the dominant crew here for a couple of years. We went about 5 weeks through December and early January without any sign of One-ear and I was beginning to think she had either moved on or died (coyotes can live 10-14 years in the wild, but I have no idea how old she was when I first recorded her on camera). And then this happened one night…

–One-ear doing some serious territorial marking while another coyote (her mate or a young from last year?) looks on.

After rains (or melting snow), this section of the creek forms a large pool because of the log jam below.That attracts all sorts of critters from raccoons to bathing crows to deer. Here, two nice bucks walk through the pool.

–A pair of nice bucks wade through the pool. One stops at the “community mail” tree, a holly whose branches have been rubbed by countless deer exchanging scent notes. I think that buck is also getting ready to pee into the pool at the end of the clip. These deer would not be allowed in our neighborhood swimming pools as they frequently pee into the same water where they get a drink.

Just downstream from that camera is another place where our intermittent stream tends to hold a nice pool of water after rains. This is a frequent site visited by our deer herd, whether to get a drink or just have fun.

–Two deer enjoy splashing in the water after a recent rain. It is fascinating how much behavior we share with our wild neighbors.

–Bucks also seem to be stimulated by water, and these two spent a few minutes testing each others’ strength. The rut has passed and the bucks are now hanging out in bachelor groups, but, just like boys on the playground, they seem to enjoy a tussle every now and then.

This last clip is not from one of the game cameras,. I recorded this with my new mirrorless camera and lens this week while changing out the game camera cards. As I was walking, a female pileated woodpecker (she lacks the red streak on the cheek) took off from a log nearby and flew a short distance. I stopped and stood next to a tree and the bird started to come back in my direction, hopping from one log to another searching for insects.

–This pileated woodpecker was hammering fallen logs looking for a snack. Just up the hill, a male pileated hammered on a standing dead tree.

In this season of cold and stress for wildlife, our woods are still alive with critters trying to survive. Mating season for coyotes is upon us and that may explain the substantial number of hits on my game cameras the past couple of weeks. We’ll see what this next week of extreme cold will bring.