January 9th, 11th and 12th 2012

I visited the woods yesterday morning, after the coldest night of the season so far. In hindsight, I should have waited until later in the day when it warmed up to near freezing. As it was, it was too cold and I was too underdressed to want to hang around very long. On top of that, once I had removed my gloves to retrieve the memory card from the scouting camera, frigid fingers set in rapidly and I had no desire to take the gloves off again for any reason. So no pictures from the point-and-shoot this time even though I had it in my pocket. I did see fresh (since last visit) raccoon tracks in the frozen mud along the stream, and the skunk cabbage has sprouted to a few inches high.

In the past week, conditions continued mild and snow-free until Thursday 1/12, when a storm passed through with the first accumulating snow of the year. However it quickly changed over to pouring rain through midafternoon. Then the deep freeze for the weekend. End result, no snow for tracks and ground frozen solid to boot.

The scouting camera yielded a few pictures, all of them deer:

Given the proximity of the camera site to a well-worn deer trail I should have known they'd hog the spotlight. Still, with all the raccoon scat and sunflower seed piles I thought I might get some other critters as well. Still a promising site, although the camera needs to be repositioned so that the tree doesn't take up half the frame. Battery level also getting low, reading at 58%. I'm not sure if the low temperature affected the status of this reading though.

While I was checking the camera a few people passed through on the main path making quite a racket. Right after they went by a deer ran through, from the eastern edge staying near the stream. I think it sensed both me and the other visitors.

No deer ticks this time, a big change from a week ago and I did check thoroughly. Maybe they're torpid at temps below 20 degrees, one can hope. YTD total stays at 19.