Milestone - Part Two

The number one animal appearing in the digital captures of Snapshot Wisconsin trail cameras is Odocoileus virginianus, the whitetail deer.

Same here.

Fun Fact: The top four animals captured here are as follows (in rank order) - Deer, Turkey, Cottontail and Racoon.

 

 

Milestone

Some of you readers know that we've been hosting a Snapshot Wisconsin camera here at The Platz. 

This project utilizes volunteers to help identify and count the animals recorded on these trail cameras. 

Crowdsourcing the data of where and when each photo was taken will hopefully lend further understanding of wildlife population distributions across Wisconsin and how these distributions change over time. Snapshot Wisconsin is a consistent mechanism to monitor all types of wildlife throughout the year.   

Wisconsin started as a pilot program in only two counties in 2016 but expanded statewide in 2018. Today, there are 1,894 volunteers, monitoring over 2,069 trail cameras across the state. Furthermore, the Snapshot program receives approximately 45,000 photos per day from all these cameras. Just stop and think about how incredible that is!

The Bushnell Snapshot camera we host was deployed at the end of October 2018 and had to be replaced after a critter damaged its motion detector several years ago.  The location has not changed in eight years.  

Snapshot Wisconsin recently reached an important milestone - 

100 Million Photos Collected! 

100 million photos collected is no small feat, and the volunteer hours which made it all possible cannot be overstated. These photos have provided critical data to help inform countless wildlife management decisions, provided educational opportunities for students across the state and engaged thousands of volunteers in community science. To celebrate this achievement, the Snapshot Team put together a photo collection featuring one trail camera image from each county in Wisconsin. 

Go to this link to learn more as you scroll to explore our state, county by county, through the lens of the Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera project.  This story map you will be redirected-to is best viewed on a desktop browser or tablet. 

Fun Fact:  The photo featured for Door County was taken by the camera we host. 

How To Tell A Wolf From A Coyote

While there are no reported breeding pairs of wolves on the peninsula it is not unheard-of to have a sighting from time to time.  It's typically a juvenile male - a solitary individual - who has dispersed from his pack to strike out and claim his own territory.  These animals typically find their way here from northern Wisconsin (via Green Bay) or travel over the ice on the bay from Michigan's upper peninsula.  There was a reported sighting a week or so ago and a discussion ensued on a local Face Book group about identification of a wolf versus a coyote.

Being a Snapshot Wisconsin participant I figured they would have some useful info on how to differentiate a wolf from a coyote.

From a stationary camera here you go with both individuals superimposed together for comparison....

click on the image to enlarge

More Holiday Spirit

From the blog archives there is this.

I originally published this photo on February 20, 2013 pitching it as a shot taken from a new location.

I cleaned it up a bit and cropped it to remove the date and time stamp.  I suggested that it might be one that will make it to the collage of pictures in the 2013 Christmas card.

I cannot recall if it made the cut for the Christmas card but it does date how long a trail cam has been at this location.   

A decade of uninterrupted and patient monitoring of who stumbles across this intersection of three trails.  It is such an excellent spot for wildlife monitoring that a Wisconsin DNR Snapshot camera was located there on October 20, 2018.

The trees that the cams are strapped-to are ash trees that are almost dead so I'm going to have to do something about that.  But it's been fun performing a longitudinal monitoring of the same location for such a long time.

Cheers!

Mama And The Twins

 

Speaking of deer - there was this photo taken the day after Christmas.

Larger deer in the middle and two more generally full-grown - yet smaller deer - foreground and background.

They're all looking fat and sassy.

My guess is mama and her twins born earlier in 2021.

Wiley Coyote

Each evening there is 'last call' before bedtime for blonde dog to piddle one last time.  This is usually accompanied by giving the evening air a good long sniff, raised hackles and barking at the the general darkness surrounding the house.

On our daily walk there is typically a lot of sniffing and peeing.  No barking - but plenty of scent-marking.

There are coyotes out there.  We don't see them in real time - yet they are there.

Our resident coyotes are pretty cagey and make every effort to avoid direct contact with people.  Nevertheless, they're out there and blonde dog makes a regular effort to keep her territory marked.  

Taken only a few days-apart at the same location there are these images from the DNR trail camera that we host.....

Timberdoodle

From the Wisconsin DNR trail camera there was this recently......

Scolopax minor – The American Woodcock – colloquially known as the timberdoodle.   Superbly camouflaged this chunky bird - unlike its shore-dwelling relatives - spends much of its life on the forest floor probing with its long bill for insects and earthworms.  

'Tis The Season

This photo was taken Saturday by the Snapshot Wisconsin camera we curate.

 

There’s now five cams deployed in the woods - the sixth temporarily reassigned to the porch as the Oriole cam.   

 

Every two weeks I recover hundreds of digital images and unless there’s something unusual or appealing all those images are discarded.  As you might imagine most of the images are whitetail deer.  Deer are cheap and plentiful in trail camera world.  I saved one of about 600+ deer photos that were uploaded yesterday for comparison purposes.

 

The animal  - far right - is full-term pregnant.

 

It’s fawning time around these parts. So best to keep a sharp eye out and the dog close……

 

Rare Vistor Pays a Call

I stumbled-upon a technological hiccup with a recent upload of photos from our Snapshot Wisconsin (DNR) trail camera.  It would appear that back in February a routine upload to the cloud network failed to send all of the photos.  Last weekend that SD card found it's way back into the upload rotation and sure as shooting a big slug of photos from January and February showed-up.  Good thing because this infrared gem was in the collection......

click on image to enlarge

I captured my very first picture of one of these in February of 2019.  Again in March and October of last year.  And the end of January this year.  Woot Woot!   

This is Martes pennanti - the Fisher.  One of the larger members of the weasel family - only the river otter is bigger.    

Characterized by a soft and supple pelt this highly-prized furbearer was oft referred-to as the American Sable.  Once widely distributed across Wisconsin - the great cutover of our northern forests and unregulated trapping eventually led to the extirpation of this species.  Only very small remnant populations retreating to the northern-most reaches of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Nevertheless, the species persists as a consequence of reintroduction efforts and reforestation of marginal farmland.  Four photos over three consecutive years is not happenstance and it would appear that southern Door County is now part of an expanding range. 

These are habitually solitary animals and while a pregnant female will den-up for a period of time - males are always on the prowl with a typical boy requiring as much as 150 square miles of territory.  March and April is mating season for the fisher and is characterized by a reproductive curiosity featuring a delayed implantation period of 10 to 11 months.  Possibly stimulated by longer daylight - the blastocyst (the earliest stage of the embryo) is then implanted in the uterus.  Gestation is 6 weeks followed by the birth of three to four kits.  Since mom is capable of mating immediately afterwards females spend virtually all of their adult lives either pregnant or lactating.  By the end of summer the young will leave the den and disperse to establish their own territories.  Males contribute nothing to the raising of the young.

Another fun fact is that this critter is an accomplished swimmer and quite comfortable in the water.  You're probably thinking - how many fish can a fisher fish?  The answer is none.  The fisher does not fish.  Their smaller mink cousins are better fishermen than the fisher.  An opportunistic feeder this animal will dine on mice, voles, dead fish, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons and an occasional house cat.  Seasonally they'll help themselves to reptiles, amphibians, nuts, berries, eggs and fruit.  Equipped with cat-like retractable claws this is one of the few predators that will take-down a porcupine with little to no ill-effect. 

I'm positively tickled to capture another photo with an ever-patient, motion-activated woodland sentinel.

Raising a toast to big weasels and second-rate fishermen....

Milestone

Some of you readers know that we've been hosting a Snapshot Wisconsin camera here at The Platz. 

This project utilizes volunteers to help identify and count the animals recorded on these trail cameras. 

Crowdsourcing the data of where and when each photo was taken will hopefully lend further understanding of wildlife population distributions across Wisconsin and how these distributions change over time. Snapshot Wisconsin is a consistent mechanism to monitor all types of wildlife throughout the year.   

Wisconsin started as a pilot program in only two counties in 2016 but expanded statewide in 2018. Today, there are more than 1,800 volunteers, monitoring over 2,100 trail cameras across the state. Furthermore, the Snapshot program receives approximately 45,000 photos per day from all these cameras. Just stop and think about how incredible that is!

The Bushnell Snapshot camera we host was deployed at the end of October 2018 and it continues to faithfully and patiently gather photo documentation of the critters here.  

Snapshot Wisconsin recently reached an important milestone - 

The 50 millionth photo! 

As a thank you to everyone who has helped the program out or followed its success (and to celebrate the 50 millionth photo milestone), the Snapshot Wisconsin team selected some of their favorite photos from the first 50 million and used them to build an interactive map of Wisconsin. This tool highlights each photo and tells a short story about the photo itself or the species shown. It serves as a “snapshot” of how the program has grown over the years.

Rare species sightings, unusual animal behaviors, species facts, and even a few multi-species encounters can all be seen in the interactive map.   

Check it out!

Here is one of our favorite Snapshot photos - a bald eagle - April 13, 2019

 

 

Auditioning

 

 

 

Nice action shot the trail cam scored - literally, poetry in potion is this.       

 

Little known wildlife factoid.     

 

A very few number of fawns are born with the gift of flight.     

 

This deer is going to audition to pull Santa's sleigh this coming Christmas.....

Nice Catch on the Trail Camera

Meet Toxostoma rufum - the Brown Thrasher.  

click on image for a closer look

At first blush I thought this might be a Northern Flicker but the field marks weren't correct.   For this bird the long brown tail is a give-away.  And they are quite common in our woods.

Our DNR trail camera snapped this photo recently.  It is a pleasing and rare action photo.

From above this is a rust-colored bird and from below will be observed a spotted-speckled-streaked breast and a long brown tail.  Most often you'll hear this bird before you see it - as it is renowned for its song repertoire.  Of all the songbirds in north America this one has a book that includes more than 1100 tunes.

They are a delight to listen-to in the early spring mating ritual and much to our chagrin they like scratching in the shredded mulch of Jill's flower beds.

In the trail camera world this is what is known as a money shot.

Happy Dog

Another trail camera photo that captures an action shot of a very happy dog....

Her Highness is smiling.......

The Big Stretch

Second of a handful of trail camera photos for this week.  

Sometimes you just have to stretch your wings....

Same Deer?

From the DNR Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera there is this.

Same day - obviously different times.

Same deer?

What would be the odds?

Winter Dogs

From the DNR trail camera are these pictures of the dogs.

Sunny day, decent composition, action too.

Same location four days apart - black dog 2/29 and blonde dog 3/4.

Of course considering this is a Snapshot Wisconsin monitoring camera all photos of people and domestic animals are discarded.

Except here...

Look Who Paid a Call

Meet Vulpes vulpes – the Red Fox.  It is distinguished from the Gray Fox by a white-tipped tail visible in the photos.  I haven’t seen one of these on a trail camera in years.  I had figured the coyotes pretty-much cleaned them out.  

Moultrie Camera Photo

Snapshot Wisconsin Bushnell Photo

They’re omnivores that dine-upon everything from rabbits, small rodents, roadkill, fruits and nuts and insects.  They sometimes make their home in an enlarged woodchuck den, or hollow log, or underneath a log or rock in a stream bank or side of a hill.  A mated pair will defend their turf from other foxes but this canine frequently is prey to the resident coyotes and wolves.   A female is called a vixen, a male is called a dog fox, newborns are called pups, kits or cubs.  And a group of foxes is called a skulk.  

They're breeding this time of year.  

Makes perfect sense.  Valentine's Day is coming-up.

Doe

Nice trail photo from the DNR trail camera.

Winter snow added to the black and white format of pictures taken in low-light conditions or after dark in infrared (IR) mode adds an ethereal quality to the photo composition.

Deer in the Headlights

Not exactly in the headlights - but similar.

This deer was simultaneously photographed by two trail cameras using an invisible flash - infrared night vision.  Because both cameras were triggered at the same time giving the animal got a double dose of infrared.

This technology does not trigger a blinding flash like we know it - rather a light wave length that is not visible to the subject.  This is known as electromagnetic radiation - or EMR - and happens to be a wavelength longer than that of visible light.  As a consequence it is general invisible to the human and animal eye.  One of the drawbacks is that night vision does result in an image reproduced only in varying shares of black and white.  Considering it doesn't spook the critter that is a reasonable trade-off.

In case you are wondering about the dual camera set-up - I've had a Moultrie trail camera located here for possibly more than four years.  Because it is close to water and sits at the confluence of three trails it is an excellent location.  Some would suggest a hot location.  When the Wisconsin DNR approved our hosting of a state camera for the Snapshot Wisconsin wildlife crowdsourcing program I located the DNR's Bushnell camera adjacent to the original camera.

Moultrie pic...

Bushnell pic...

Three's a Crowd

A trail camera photo of a doe with a fawn is so common as to be boring.   

A trail camera photo of a doe with twin fawns is common enough as to cause no particular excitement.

A trail camera photo of a doe with triplets is uncommon enough that it might call for a cigar!

Over more than two decades of trail camera monitoring only once before have I recorded a photo of a doe with three fawns.  That was August 14, 2014.

click on images for a closer look

The DNR Snapshot Wisconsin camera that we are hosting captured these photos on August 29. 

I never saw this coming. 

Triplets!

Further evidence of too many deer on the local landscape.