Tag Archives: trail camera

Trail Camera Scavenger Hunt #3

We’re back with some more trail cam videos for some scavenger hunting fun! This time, the action is all in the meadows. Look closely, because there’s one or two animals hiding in the darkness! If you want to go back and check out the old videos or find the scavenger hunt list, here’s Post #1 (with the list) and Post #2.  

I’m ready for my close up!!!

Look who’s found a home!

Searching for a meal!

Look for the Glowing Eyes

Who’s that walking by???

Nature in a Minute: Trail Camera Scavenger Hunt

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be starting an exciting new activity for kids, families, and all our readers here on the Taking Flight blog: a trail camera scavenger hunt! Every few days, we’ll post videos from cameras around our sanctuary. You’ll get to see cool, close-up views of animals that you might not get to see in person. We might even see some videos of animals that only come out at night! The cameras will be by the vernal pool, our bird feeders, and other places around the sanctuary. Watch closely to find out how many of these things you can see!  

Glowing eye

A splash 

An owl 

A wood duck 

A shaking branch 

A reptile 

A groundhog 

A perching bird 

A raccoon 

A squirrel 

A deer 

A mallard 

A frog 

A flying bird 

A fox 

Here’s the first set of videos: 

Wait for it…

Vernal Pool Mystery

Oh dear…what’s in that tree???

What other cool animals do you think will show up? Check the blog often to find out! 

Nature in a Minute: Whose woods these are…

On January 1, 2019, Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening entered into the public domain and I have been pondering the lines from that poem, especially

Whose woods these are…

Robert Frost, 1923

as I take people on programs through the wildlife sanctuary – like high school photography students, develop STEAM curriculum inspired by our natural world, and continue to learn about our amazing natural world right here in Canton. Whose woods are these…

A Great-horned Owl has taken up residence in our pine grove.

As I quietly walked through our wildlife sanctuary, through a grove of tall, spindly white pines and oaks looking for the aforementioned great-horned owl, a white-tail flashed and a “herd” of deer bounded away my foot steps. My attention was draw to a quieter, subtle sound of faintly rustling leaves and breaking twigs gave away the location of a no longer resting coyote.

Coyote, January 8, 2019

Here is a video from our trail camera of four white-tailed deer bounding across the pine grove late one afternoon this new year.

Four deer bounding through the pine grove

Here is a trail camera video from the past week of a single coyote a little past dawn moving through the pine grove.

Coyote in the pine groove

Since the New Year, our wildlife sanctuary has been bursting with activity fueled by an eruption of pine cones. Each day there is a cacophony of squirrels, both red and grey, and seed eating birds, like red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches, brown creepers, tufted titmouse, black-capped chickadees, and more. The ground is covered with pine cones, including this pile near a vernal pool on the property.

A cache of pine cones. January 8, 2019.

A red squirrel moved frenetically – both eating pine seeds and remaining vigilant for predators – like the coyote and great horned owl that have both taken up residence in the pine grove.

A red squirrel frenetically collects and eats pine seeds

As a raptor hunted near by and blue jay’s mobbed the bird, a grey squirrel hung tightly to the trunk of a tree and tried to blend in until the danger passed. Whose woods are these…

Robert Frost reading Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Nature in a minute…wood duck selfie from our trail camera

Nature in a minute to start off the week of April 9, 2018. We’ve had wood ducks spotted at the vernal pool 4 times over the past week. Here are a few wonderful new trail camera videos showing the wood ducks. They spent over three hours in the vernal pool on Saturday morning, April, 7, 2018. If you listen closely to the black and white video (it’s take at dawn ~5:15 am) you can hear the wood ducks talking to one another, it sounds a little bit like zippers opening and closing. Enjoy the following three videos.