In winter, camera trapping gets both harder and easier. The challenges include short days that limit the opportunity for color daytime photos, cold temperatures that can tax equipment, and a reduced suite of animals to photograph. On the plus side, winter’s scarcity means that animals become more predictable in their patterns and desires. Food becomes a primary driver, and the camera trapper can capitalize on this.
We set the cameras out for three days over a carcass pit full of deer bones that had been harvested in the fall, but found that our technique was too blunt. The carcasses attracted mice, an opossum, crows, blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, and a gray fox, as well as red, gray, and flying squirrels, but most of the mammals came in at night, on account of the bait being in a relatively populated area, and the good daytime pictures we got of the birds all had gore in them, which nobody really likes to look at.
So we tweaked our technique slightly, setting the camera up pointing away from the pit along a fallen log. We wedged a few meat scraps underneath a branch on the log as a means of holding an animal temporarily in the frame. The next morning our efforts were rewarded with this Muybridgian sequence of a red-tailed hawk taking the bait.
We were reasonably happy with this sequence, as it gives a nice, color opportunity to examine an animal you rarely see up close. Plus it’s neat to watch her manipulate the stick. But the framing was uncreative -- more thought might have gone into it. And though the meat scraps aren’t as in your face as they are in carcass form, they’re still the focal point, which gives the pictures an in-the-zoo feel.
We’re going to try appealing to an animal’s sense of smell in our next installment. Stay tuned.
