Saturday, April 9, 2016

Night Life

Ghostlike images, shot mostly while we're sleeping. Taken by a trail cam, a christmas gift from Patty, set on autopilot. It takes about a thousand images a week, triggered by movement.


Rabbits are quite active at all hours of the night (the camera records date and time data for each image).


As you can see there are at least two in the image above. And perhaps even three in the one below. At least I think the one on the far right is a rabbit.


And that's how we know that there is more than just one bunny.

It's more than rabbits that wander about at night. And while many images are just pairs of white spots, eyes of unknown creatures passing through, others are easily identifiable.


We knew that there are raccoons. Two in the image above, some images have as many as three.


But I had not expected to see a raccoon and a rabbit in the same image. And we got such images on multiple nights.


Nor a human and a rabbit.


I did expect possums. And was not disappointed.  They are regulars.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see these passing through.


Cats. I'm not sure if it was one or several cats. We've seen at least three different cats in our yard since we've moved here, and more at our neighbors. We don't know if they are feral or pets. We do know that we don't like that they are out and about.

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One animal I was happy not to see in this last set of images were deer. They were common in previous image sets. You might have noticed a black object in the center of each image. We have three such objects placed about our yard. They're called a "Wireless Deer Fence". We bought them at the Philadelphia Flower Show this year. They work by having a scent attractant that draws the deer in to investigate. And when they do the deer gets an electric shock (a pretty good one as I can attest to from experience). Theoretically this trains the deer to stay away, as they develop an unpleasant association with the area. So far it seems to be working. But it is still early, and not much is in bloom yet. So we'll see.

Other animals I'm surprised have not appeared yet include skunk, fox, and coyote, all of which are in the area. The trail cam will keep watching ...


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