You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

~John Muir

One of my favorite things is to find a place out in nature and just sit and watch. You never know what you might see and the longer you are there, the more the wild creatures begin to accept you and go about their business. Trail cameras offer another version of this activity as they sit in one place for days at a time and record our wild neighbors doing things we otherwise might not see. They have the added benefit of being on duty 24/7 but do have limitations – they can’t turn and survey the entire scene plus there are limits to battery life especially in cold weather. I have one camera right behind the house at our small water hole and one up along a path at the base of the cliff above our house. Its been a couple of months since I shared what the cameras have seen, so here are a few highlights..

Days after the flurry of bear activity (sows and cubs) in our yard that I reported on in a previous post, this huge boar showed up in town. He made several trips by the trail camera up at the cliff but never came into the yard (by that time we had cut back the crab apple tree and picked all the fruit to remove the bear attractants).

One of the most exciting video clips for me was of a bobcat strolling by the camera one night in late October.

As I walked up to the camera one day to change cards, I saw what I thought was bobcat scat along the trail. Sure enough, a large bobcat had traveled that route and was caught on camera.

Many cow and calf elk have often shown themselves on the cliff-side trail but the “town bull” has only been caught on camera a couple of times this Fall.

This critter has been seen 4 times on cameras, twice in the yard and twice up by the cliff. The yard images only caught a flared tail tip.

A striped skunk waddles by the camera with tail flared…perhaps something spooked it?

With the approach of winter, more mule deer have been seen on the hillside behind the house and along the cliff-side trail.

This nice buck has some sort of line tangled in its antlers. Hoping it can rid itself of this debris.

While we were away at Thanksgiving, there was a nice 4-inch snowfall. This deer herd included a buck with a tall set of antlers.

The day after we got home I found a pigeon carcass in one of our yard walkways. It had been pecked at but there was still plenty of meat on the carcass. This is the second pigeon kill I have found in the past month (glad some predator is taking advantage of the many birds that roost on the cliff). They were both most likely day-time predators so I figured it was a raptor of some sort, either an accipiter or falcon. I put a trail camera on one of the deck supports and checked it the next morning when I saw the carcass was gone. A deer mouse nibbled on the carcass for a couple of hours off and on. Then a critter came by and took it away.

One of a few raccoons we regularly see on our cameras found the pigeon carcass and wasted no time in carting it away.

Then the camera captured what I am assuming was the killer of the pigeon coming back at sunrise to reclaim its meal. I first thought it was a Cooper’s Hawk based on the size and the fact I think it might be tough for a sharpie to take down a pigeon. But the more I look at it, I’m not sure and it is possible it is a large female sharp-shinned hawk. Your thoughts are welcome as replies.

A disappointed hawk arrives at its kill site to find its meal has disappeared overnight.

I’m looking forward to seeing what new animals appear this winter. It may be more difficult to reach the camera at the base of the cliff with snow and ice on that slope but the insights into our wild neighbors will make it worth the effort.