The bee hives

A little over a month ago a neighbor at a ranch down the road set out some bee hives.  He recently told me that he is having bear trouble already.  The hives are surrounded by a wire fence with a strand of hot wire (electric) along the top.  Really not much of a deterrent to a determined bear, but I doubt there can be much honey stored away in those hives this soon.  But then I really don’t know an awfully lot about bees and their hives myself.  At any rate, I thought this might be a dandy spot for the trail cam.  I left it for a week as I have been doing, and picked it up this afternoon.  In that time the camera had only been tripped 3 times.  The only useable photo is this one of a deer on the outside of the wire fence.  There was another photo in which I couldn’t see anything, but the accompanying video shows a deer back in the deep shade.  It is so dark that I wouldn’t have seen it even then if it hadn’t moved.  No bears.  I may try there again at another time if I hear from the rancher that a bear has been back, but in the meantime I have other places in mind where I want to leave the camera.  

Still learning

This morning I went back up the mountain to collect the trail camera that I had left a week ago.  I’m obviously still learning how to best position the camera for the best results.  The cam was strapped to a root of an old down tree, aimed right up an old logging spur that is no longer used.  I assumed that any animals in the area would be walking up or down the old road.  There was still the possibility of animals crossing the road, but this didn’t take into account animals crossing very close to the camera.  Unlike sitting on a calling stand with a camera at the ready, there is no way to reposition the trail cam to cover the action.  Live and learn!

The first thing I learned was that some of my supposedly secluded spots aren’t as secluded as I thought they were.  The experience with the guy using a metal detector should have taught me that.  This time I had another visitor.

The camera was tripped a couple of times where no animals were visible in the still photos.  Watching the videos, I believe it was caused by wind blowing vegetation; weeds, leaves, etc.  Then I got a night time blurred shot of a deer crossing in front of the camera.  Call it a near miss.  The video didn’t pick it up at all.

Another near miss, but as least I came close to capturing the kind of wildlife I was hoping for.  You may have to kick the video up to full screen to make it out, but very near the tail end of the clip the back of a bear can be seen as it crossed the road very close to the camera.