Father's Night Out
I'll admit I've been a vit envious of Steve Reed's critter videos which never fail to entertain. I already had a trail camera that took still videos but it just wasn't the same and never seemed to catch other critters besides deer which are plentiful.
During Amazon Prime day recently, I purchased a deeply discounted trail camera that takes video and set it up on a post on my back deck pointed towards the garden. I promptly forgot about it for nearly a week until I happened to glimpse it being set off in our house security camera footage which is focused on entrances to our house and not towards the garden area. In that footage, I could just glimpse a deer off in the far distance.
I retrieved the footage from the newly purchased trail camera on my way inside from picking that morning's vegetables from the garden and started to review it. Besides hours of footage of me working in the garden, I was pleasantly surprised to see some interesting videos of a few critters in my backyard.
The video starts off with a raccoon heading towards the birdhouse or perhaps scoping the electric fence for weaknesses when the sweetcorn starts producing ears. Then you see a young father and a yearling deer playing with each other. The third clip shows two older male deer with nice antler racks on themselves and in the far off distance, a rabbit eating grass. Finally you see the last older male deer make an exit stage right and the rabbit takes his cue and hops into the tree line.
While the video is still mostly deer, I have only very rarely seen male deer with large racks in my yard and most of my videos starred them. I have always assumed that the bucks stayed down in the trees and only the does and children came up in the yard. But this video shows that the bucks come out only at night, or well before sunrise anyway.
We are hosting some RAGBRAI riders in two days time to camp in our backyard overnight so for their privacy, I won't put my camera out until after they've left but I hope I can get some more video footage of my backyard critters in action.
I liked the interaction between doe and fawn in the one section, and of course, it's nice to see the horny, so to speak, boys.
ReplyDeleteLook closely but it was an antlered buck and a fawn.
DeleteThat was pretty awesome. Had no idea bucks came out that much. Usually only see does and fawns if I see deer, and it's usually only driving through the forest or backroads.
ReplyDeleteI usually only see the bucks during rutting season in the fall so it was nice to see them in my backyard despite the damage they do to anything green that we plant with intentions of eating!
DeleteThat was great! I loved seeing the deer, especially the male and the fawn interacting with each other. It's funny how that rabbit stayed so far away. The cameras always give all the critters such intensely glowing eyes, which is sometimes the only way you can really see them!
ReplyDeleteIf not for the eyes, I wouldn't have noticed the rabbit, at least until the very end when it hopped away.
DeleteThanks for sharing your video - they're always fun to watch! I'm glad that raccoon didn't get into your garden and wreak havoc. I'm certain you know they do that! We haven't set up a camera in years, but use to see deer, coons, armadillos, and unfortunately, feral hogs. They are a terrible problem.
ReplyDeleteI have seen damage from feral hogs down at our Arkansas cabin and it can be quite extensive. Armadillos are getting closer every year judging from their bodies along the highways. I've seen one within 80 miles of our place a couple summers back.
DeleteI think it's fascinating what kind of critters come out at night. We don't realize it because we are daytime people.
ReplyDeleteKind of like going to Walmart after midnight. Everyone there look and act a lot different than those who go in the daytime.
DeleteCool! What are they eating? Also, how many bike riders will you be hosting? And cooking for them, etc?
ReplyDeleteHopefully just grass or the weeds in our grass. In the early winter though they like to move back to our landscaping when all their normal browse is dried and gone.
DeleteWe hosted I think 16 or 17 riders and a few support staff, down from the 50 they thought might show up when they asked six months ago. They ride all day long and leave and arrive at various times so we mostly just gave them access to a bathroom for showers and a toilet, and then where ever they could find space on our basement floor. At least five of them set up tents in our lawn. We did cook a few pans of cinnamon rolls and bought some bananas which we set out in the morning. But they had their own routines so the bicycle riders didn't eat very many. The support staff though took the leftovers with them for the next evening.
Nice racks on the bucks! You got some great footage...lately we had a domestic cat and a bear...the bear is a regular.
ReplyDeleteIf I get a bear on my camera, I'm not sure what I'm going to do but I'll have to start doing many things differently.
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