Trail Cam Tales

We got our trail cam back in action. For awhile it was taking no photos, but I found out that there was one bad cell in the rechargeable batteries that, even though the camera registered 60% battery power remaining, it wouldn't detect movement or fire the camera. Once I replaced the batteries, it started taking pictures again.

We have a new critter on Die Weide - it's one of the ones that make you go Ahhhh! But I'll save that for later. First I will show you a sequence of two photos and tell you the story behind what occurred in these two brief pictures.

So, what do we have here? We have the tail end of a deer. To give you more perspective, I have my trail cam set up to take a burst of five photos upon detecting movement. Then it waits 30 minutes before reactivating the sensor to take the next burst when something moving triggers it. This was the first photo and the other four frames in the burst were empty. My interpretation, at the 08:26 timestamp, this deer was hauling by so fast that from the time the sensor detected movement and this first photo snapped only its hindquarters was captured as it fled by the camera. Normally I get four or five frames with deer as they are leisurely grazing along. Hmm, so what spooked the deer past the camera?!?

Why it was my friendly neighbor wandering by exactly 30 minutes after the spooked deer. From these two photos I can deduce that my neighbor walked along the north fence approximately 30 minutes earlier (to the left in the frame) which spooked the deer to flee south past the camera. It took half an hour between the deer fleeing for our neighbor to navigate our woodland trail to cross from behind the camera (there were more frames of his passing by). We met and talked the day I retrieved the memory stick and he told me he had been on the property as he was hunting for his missing dogs and that I might find him on my trail cam. Sure enough he was there but I also found it interesting and a bit amusing that my trail cam actually caught a small story here - that of a deer spooked by a wandering human.

And now for that which I enticed you with - (drum roll please) the new critter! Technically it's not new in the sense of a new species as I have plenty of pictures of this particular species. However, as you can now see, it is a "new" critter!

Now everyone say, "Ahhh, how cute!"

But for me an even cooler aspect of this critter is the very next weekend, when I went camping with my brother on Die Weide, I got to see this delightful critter in person! I had just finished turning our bratwurst and was stirring the Ranchstyle beans over the fire pit when my brother pointed behind me and said, "there's Bambi!" So I turned around and saw no more than 10 feet behind me the cute critter bounding away through the tall grass. What a fun thing to see. Every time I get to stay out at Die Weide, I think, "Life is Good!"

Last note and last photo - this is from yesterday's visit to the land. We watered the orchard as usual, brought the neighbors a loaf of home-baked Sourdough German Mischbrot, and swapped out the trail cam memory stick. This photo was on the stick, which I blew up a bit to show an odd sight - a deer with either a pink collar or something like trash around its neck. I think its a collar, though pink seems garish. The deer appears healthy and the collar doesn't appear to hinder it. Unfortunately, the deer never turned sideways to get a better view. I hope the trail cam captures it again.