Gaining Some Game Camera Credentials in the Backyard

 Our middle daughter Helen always offers sage advice when adventuring into the woods. For example, she has on more than one occasion reminded me that before peeing in the woods, I had better check for trail cameras first. I admit that doing so had never once crossed my mind; and since hearing this wisdom, I've been terrified that someone out there has captured me in a most compromising position! 

In the beginning of January, Wayne gifted to me, my first trail camera. It wasn't a spontaneous gift mind you, I had a growing mental list of reasons why such an investment would benefit us. One of which was to keep track of that dog-baptizing skunk that hangs out under the deck stairs. Truth be told however, it was pure jealousy that caused me to alert Wayne to my thoughts on the subject. 

Last fall, when it seemed as if everyone in Vernon had captured and posted pictures of  bobcats, (usually captioned, "It's a big one") I began to wonder exactly  how I had failed so miserably in my attempts to invite wildlife into my own yard. Then one afternoon as I was walking by the corner of the house where rhododendrons cover the edge of the deck, I flushed a big beautiful bobcat from the bushes. Now, I didn't go on social media to share this remarkable experience; because without photographic evidence, I didn't want to be accused of conjuring up a fish story.  I think everyone sees where I'm going here. 

 Photographic evidence, Who is raiding the compost?

#1, Clever crows.

#2, I would have expected nothing less!

#3 Tell me it ain't so!

Photographic evidence, Who is eating the bark off of the roadside hedge?

#1 How cute is this fluffy bunny? I'll allow it!

#2 There it is.

Photographic evidence, Who is chewing the gas cans, beams and wires in the shed?

#1, What a surprise! 

#2, Clearly making a fool of me and my camera!

Perhaps I was looking at this all wrong? Maybe what I needed was a more optimistic approach. After all, I had already proven to Wayne that the new camera was worth the purchase by solving three household mysteries. It was time to follow my dreams and photograph that big fish! 

Yes, the key to success, what was actually needed here, was to scrutinize who was taking advantage of the various natural features of my yard! I was done attempting to catch the criminals, I wanted to be a star! Errr, I mean, I wanted a picture of something exciting.

I decided that the camera should be lowered and directed towards a den that had been in use previous years.

Photographic evidence, Who is benefiting from the natural features?

#1, it sure looks like a squirrel

 

Clearly the time had come to apply science to my efforts and so I got out my tools of the trade while remembering Helen's sage advice of, "look before you go."

# two (even their scat is cute!) Hi bunny!

# two

Of Course! What had I been thinking? There it was in plain sight, in fact there it was everywhere around our blackberry bushes! The frustrating thing was that near the start of my quest, I had focused on this very location and abandoned it for more promising sights.

Hey bunny, I owe you a debt of gratitude!

 Had I missed something important? I decided to go back through the pictures taken on the day that the squirrel had camped out by the den (and in front of the camera). It was there that I found my bliss! You may be thinking, "that's the most peculiar bobcat that I have ever seen a picture of." That's because it's actually a picture of a deer.

Locating deer scat around the blackberry bushes, and making another location adjustment towards the scat, revealed a return visit.

That's three deer in one shot, clearly I was now accredited! 

So now that I actually have some game-cam creds to my rep, I believe that I can say with some authority that it is only a matter of time before I too am posting bobcat photos on social media. How am I so confident? Because I have evidence that large mammals are comfortable in this space.  Also, mice, squirrel hairs and rabbits top the list of food resources for Eastern bobcats;* and goodness knows, I have plenty of squirrels available! Here kitty kitty!

I'm not saying that I don't have work to do before that day comes, one backyard blackberry patch does not complete a habitat. To this end, Kirk, a wildlife expert up in Maine gifted to me the book, Nature's Best Hope, A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy. Favoring experiential learning, I often spend too little time engaged in more traditional academic pursuits. As Wayne can well testify to, this results in a great deal of trial and error on my part (along with sums of money unwisely cast about). So thank you Kirk and Wayne for gifting to me the time to learn and contemplate, and for knowing me so well. -Norma Manning 

*Eastern bobcat, VT Fish and Wildlife

Unsettled Bones

 

With the gray doldrums of winter and a pandemic weighing squarely upon me, this week I started taking my lunch outside. By the time the sub zero weekend rolled around and knowing that we were in for a bit of weather on Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday, I was beginning to feel panicked that I would never see the open trail again! Ok, so that may have been a momentary loss of my senses. Call it cabin fever, call it whatever you want, Wayne was on the receiving end of it. 

A bit of a warning is in order here for those who aren't quite as fascinated by bones as I am. There are pictures of bones in this blog, not Wayne's mind you, but interesting none the less.

Wayne had barely gotten the milk on his cereal when I asked him where we were hiking today. His enthusiasm was palatable in his remark about something of it still being in the single digits. 

"Do you want to drive over to see if we can find the trail from the road?" Wayne asked after agreeing to a scouting expedition. We had both gotten into the Jeep when it dawned on us that we were headed towards another error in judgment. "Do you want to get on our gear in case we decide to start hiking?" I looked down at my day hikers and knowingly agreed. The thing about Wayne, is that I can wait forever for him only to have him in the end ready before I am. 

The plan was to hike the VAST secondary orange trail between green trail marker six and Newton road. We had previously hiked the green trail from the Vernon Rec to the Dam but had skipped this extension on that hike. 

This trail skirts state land shown near the top of the below image. Note "Blodgett" on both maps for refence. The areas shaded in blue are state lands. We decided to access the trail from Mary Drive off of 142 and parked at the now closed School House Grocery. 

Don and his crew, Vernon Trail Breakers Snowmobile Club  maintain these trails. Private land owners generously allow these trails to cross their land. 

State lands posted in yellow, are to the left of the trail as we enter from Mary Drive.

As we neared the tracks, we had state land diamonds on our immediate left, multiple newly posted no trespassing signs to our right, with green trail markers and RR signs directly ahead. This is a major intersection for a town of our size.

And by the looks of things, traffic has been heavy this winter. 

We've only taken one animal tracks class with Bonnyvale and this hike challenged every bit of our novice knowledge. Above are turkey tracks. Below are feline, K-9 and deer. There were more  than these to investigate, but I wanted to try and show all three kinds together.

Across the tracks and straight across the field is the green trail. The orange trail is to the left. Never ones to be satisfied with the obvious, we decided to walk the circumference of the field. 

When attempting to identify tracks, distance between prints and stride patterns are as important as the individual print. Here I use my glove to show relative size. These tracks show four toes with retracted claws. I asked Helen how to tell the difference between these cat prints and the weasel family. Helen said that mustelids have five toes.

I took another unexpected trip to the ground. As I rested in the prone position trying to collect myself, Wayne thinking that I had simply failed to sufficiently lift my feet while walking, asked me if I had fallen over my own feet again. I rolled over and looked in disbelief at a clump of grass that had apparently led to my undoing. 

Cut bone and deer hide. We couldn't find the skull or legs.

Rodents had gnawed at the ribs. Ferns and grasses had grown up through them. This find was worth the headache I suffered for the rest of the day from my fall.

On the bank of the Island Meadow Brook, we found a hole.

The brook was frozen enough for us to walk on. We weren't the first to walk on the ice.

With freezing and thawing, it's difficult to know the initial shape and size of a track.

The bend is a particularly beautiful area

We decided to check out the green trail bridge over the Island Meadow Brook as Don had shown me pictures of it being flooded. Don thinks that the issue is an undersized culvert. I wondered if the issue was beaver; but the only signs of beaver we found were two felled tree stumps that weren't fresh. 

From here we backtracked to the orange trail.

The light being let into this area is due to recent logging adjacent to the trail.

Wayne finally located an orange blaze.

Blodgett's field

We spent some time alternating through fields and woods

Wayne walks next to a posted area that has recently been logged.

At the edge of a Dunklee's field, we found seed filled deer tracks

The last leg of the orange trail crosses this field.

However, twenty feet from where we entered the field, Wayne noticed a sign that ended our hike short of Newton road.

Wayne checked his app to see if we had somehow missed the trail, but with no trespassing signs posted to the right of us and this sign to the left, we turned back.

Our shortened hike wasn't a total loss however, we stopped to check out a flooded area on the way back and found these cool tracks. After bugging Helen and Kirk all morning for identifications, they pointed out that most of my exciting track sightings on this hike were domestic dog and cat. I won't let that minor detail ruin my fun. -Norma Manning