Many of our setups in this Game Cam Blog series have involved edge habitat – that is, the edge of field and forest, or land and water, or the boundary between two forest types. Such places are hotspots for game.
To switch things up, we went smack into the middle of a 100-acre, run-of-the-mill, second-growth, relatively even-aged woods. There were no edges anywhere in sight. We set the camera up on a fallen tree that contained a hollow in it and a pool of water in the cavity. Biologists are always telling us about the wildlife value of quote unquote coarse woody debris, so we figured this downed log would serve as its own attractor.
The camera was up for 22 days, and we captured visits from gray, red, and flying squirrels, mice, chipmunks, raccoons, weasels, and bear. The bear shots were cool enough that we included four from a series of 26 images in the gallery below.
The tree clearly served as a source of shelter for some of the species, and as a source of food to others. It also served as a means to facilitate communication. Animals talk through their noses, as the piles of conspicuous coon scat that were left on the log bear out.
