Trail Cam

Hey all, been a busy couple weeks with cat sitting for some friends. Now that's done until their humans next vacation, I've got time to blog.

I hinted about this in my last blog and here it is. For my 50th birthday, a couple close friends of ours floored me with a trail cam as a birthday gift. I'd been pondering getting one for a while now but I'm slow about doing things that can be costly, especially when I don't know much about them.

We know what goes through our backyard after dark for the most part. Raccoons, Skunks and Opossums. Oh, and we always figured there was a cat or two. What really is surprising some nights is the frequency of the visits, like hourly! Here's a few shots from the last couple weeks.

One of my first and favourite captures with the cam.

This has happened a few nights where all 3 night mammals have appeared in such a short time frame.

Skunk at 1:41 am

9 minutes later an Opossum comes through.

4 minutes pass and here is a Raccoon.

I've set the cam up in various spots. The most action seems to happen at the very back of the yard, behind the shed. Six backyards all touch here and there is a greasy fast food place just over the next door's back fence.

A couple years ago one of the neighbours gave me his old dog house. I stuffed it full of straw last fall and put a burlap curtain up. I had seen one Raccoon in it and there was random visits from an Opossum as well. The curtain did not last the winter and I think the entrance was too big to have any wild animal want to sleep the day away inside.

This fall I cut up a piece of plywood, reducing the entry hole to a 6 inch diameter. I researched the size recommended by others. It has been my goal to make this a safe haven for an Opossum. Let's see what happens in the coming months.

The action starts not long after set up. As I mentioned, some nights the visits are hourly. They've gone on into the morning light as well.

I'd be okay if that Skunk made a home of the dog house if not an Opossum. A few nights I've had teasing shots like this. He knows it is there.

Right now I think the Skunk sleeps under our shed. We had two of them for a number of weeks but one has either moved on or something happened to it.

I've seen so many dead Skunks and Raccoons on the roads the last month, it's sickening. It is like this every fall. Ugh!

Obviously this fellow lives very nearby, look at the time.

In the coming weeks and months I plan on pointing the cam at my Owl boxes. A Screech Owl was in one of them a few years back. I've heard Screeches since and have found a few Owl pellets on the roof of the shed. Squirrels got into one of the boxes again but the other I've done everything to keep them out, so fingers crossed.

I experimented one night, attaching the cam to one of my feeder poles. A Raccoon passing by the shed triggered it.

The captures are entertaining to view the morning after. An Opossum is quickly darting by the Skunk.

The cam has caught some neighbourhood cats over the last few weeks. I'm up to 4 of them now. It's to be expected although I don't like it.

I figure these night captures will make for some easy blogs in the future, providing there is something interesting to share. Like how many Raccoons can I capture? Five is the current record.

I'd like to know who is out there in the dead of winter too, when I rarely see any of them.

Thanks for looking. This blog is over.

Back again soon!