June 15-28, 2012

Has it been two weeks? I guess it has. Quick hitter visit today as I was running late to begin with. Rampant mosquitoes as well of course not conducive to lingering. Last time it was small rodents visiting the camera. This time the camera captured a blue jay, I'm guessing the same blue jay, three times. And a bug, I think, in the first pic below:

 

Couple of videos from the 22nd, almost exactly an hour apart of the jay strutting around:

Batteries were getting low, so I replaced them. Also, I decided to move the camera to the other end of the log, such that it's now facing the spot where I've been placing it previously.

Shockingly, I was unable to find a single tick on me after the visit despite wading through knee high ferns to get to the camera.

June 7-14, 2012

Relatively quick visit to the blowdown, wading through knee-high ferns to get to it. There were multiple exposures, but unlike a year ago at this time not a whole lot of diversity. In fact it was a squirrel and a chipmunk:

If I'm correct about chipmunk behavior, it's the same one in both pics and has taken over the spot as a territory. A far cry from last year when the fisher cat was visiting this log habitually. Mosquitoes and thick vegetation kept me from spending too long or straying too far from the path, but I did notice fresh raccoon tracks in the stream bed. The lady slippers growing next to the path near the school ball field have finished blooming and gone to seed. 

 more impressive three weeks ago

track just below the sharpie

On the tick front, after careful inspection I found 8 of them. The last 2 took a while to discover too, not pleasant. Expecting more quite frankly. YTD total now stands at 112. 

May 25 - June 4, 2012

With the camera moved back to the blowdown while I was away on vacation, I came back with hopes of maybe a change in the recent run of buzzard's luck. Seeing 21 exposures on the memory card got my hopes up. Not so much as it turned out, as most of them were either false triggers or this guy:

The squirrel also checked out the camera at one point, moving it slightly:

There was also a visit from a fisher, but all the camera got was its tail as it jumped off the log:

A year ago the fisher (the same fisher?) was a lot more photogenic. You can see some of those pics on the SVT nature sightings page (link to the right) under the fisher pics. 

Didn't bother taking any shots with the point and shoot this time, the most notable aspect of the forest is that the ferns and skunk cabbage are now a thick carpet on the low-lying areas. I had meant to check on the lady slippers I noticed on my last visit near the trail but I forgot. The hectoring presence of mosquitoes may have contributed to this.

Despite having to tromp through the tall ferns to get to the camera, I could only find a single tick on me after today's visit, bringing the YTD total to 104. 

Finally, in an unrelated wildlife sighting, I got home from vacation extremely late Sunday night/Monday morning. On pulling into my driveway I spooked a coyote from the next driveway over and it proceeded to trot away, across the street and up the embankment to the library parking lot and beyond. Its head on a swivel the whole time. While it's common knowledge they have no problem visiting more urban areas (like Brookline and JP) seeing one in "downtown" Maynard was a bit of a surprise. Possibly visiting the chicken coop set up by the folks down the street.