This s a bit of a deviation from the tea topic, but you can always drink tea while reading my blog. It is Tea with Wes. I am drinking tea too - a white tea!
So obviously this blog deals with the fun of trail cams and a few tips on how to operate them properly. I've been operating with the Moultrie M-45 GameSpy trail camera. Received it form Canadian Tire for 125 dollars on clearance 1/2 year ago or so. I've been operating with chinese Ni-MH rechargeable D cells in there to avoid reoccurring expenses for batteries. So far so good - been using it daily through a very long and cold winter and had no problems that I haven't been able to learn from.
Now for the fun stuff. The series of photos below are taken largely at night, hence the black and white look. This camera uses the standard IR LEDs to light up the subject So in other words -- no flash! The animal might look at the dim red glow that emits from the LEDs, but it never has scared them as far as I can tell.
This is the trail cam as attached on a tree with some bobcat footprints in front of it.
During the fall season, this rabbit came 7 feet away from me while I was dropping some corn in the evening. I've known 'em all year so I guess he's comfortable me!
Blue jays love the corn. This big brick here is a salt lick. I wanted to see what deer populace was still around in the fall, and they love a good salt lick.
Black squirrel munching on a meal. You can see a blue jay tail to the right. Black squirrel is apparently a grey squirrel, but can have genes bred with different phases. Don't know why this occurs. They are new to these parts.
Whoa! Where did they come from?
I convinced my nieces to take a pic after trudging through a long hour a snow. Troopers they were after all the activity.
Coyote bum. The subject is moving at a walking pace, but the camera has to wake up and flip the shutter fast. Too slow - learned from that. Moved camera. I could have had a pic of 2 deer if I had positioned the camera down the path.
This is where I had some fun with 1 days photo feed. A lot of raven and crow pics. Generally speaking, and ravens are the bigger guys, as you can see the diff.
Every once and while there is a pretty large reunion of these dudes. I'm still not great as differentiating between crows and ravens, but I believe these are crows.
I could be wrong, but judging form the size, these are ravens. See the thicker lower feathers on the legs of the bottom guy and the larger larynx of that bad ass. Even look at his eyes -- gleaming awesomeness. Aerodynamic psycho.
Ever see birds them do this? They know where the corn is! Under the layer of snow.
Synchronized! There is a raven passing by in the top left.
This is my brother Jonathan checking out the view from the tree stand I set up not far away!
So this me with a sports camera on my head that I was testing out and laying down some corn for the starving creatures. Long winter!
So this dude seems to be characteristic of a lynx when I looked up in the animal book I have. Big prints!
This happens with the IR function at night. The exposure has to be a little longer and so you get motion blur with this model. Newer models went through the effort of correcting this.
Not always will a camera shoot something off to the side like this. The IR sensitivity for this camera is very center focused and only for 20 or so feet. But there is what I think is a lynx.
I am told this could be a bobcat. Hard to tell size, but also hard to see if there are any spots which are a better giveaway between a lynx and bobcat.
Looks pretty cute eh? Love to befriend him. But the reason he's around is because of chicken bones I set out. And we have living chickens which he may just have a liking for.
Another shot.
Munching on the chickens scraps.
A lovely marten! Never seen one of these! Checking out the leftovers.
Digging up whatever leftovers from the last guy there.
Family checking out the tracks of the marten.
Every once and a whilte you get a nice shot like this randomly. Probably a bird set it off.
There you have it. The seasons highlights of literally hundreds of shots. Oh -- 1 other thing these cameras can do is record video. Pretty darn dandy if you have a easy program to sift through videos.
My top tips
- Test the shots to get the right camera height, angle and distance to where the subject is expected to be.
- Bring your point and shoot digital cam with you. Exchange cards on the fly. Don't stand around the camera too long (your scent will set off the area and make animals wary of the space).
- Bring an extra set of batteries with you, even if you think the trail camera batteries shouldn't be dead.
- Lay down a bit of scraps that will attract the animals you'd like to see.
- Make sure you test the aim function in the dark which basically highlights the area where the IR photo sensor is set.
- Make sure there is no daily limit of how many photos the camera can shoot in 1 day. Check the settings to what the intervals for photos will be between shots when something is actively in the target space.
- Know the camera. Nothings worse then missing a great subject has walked right by and the camera didn't shoot for some unknown reason. They are mechanical and will shoot how they are programmed.
Hope this educates and inspires you to the use and function of trail cameras!
