Trail cam - first run

A week ago I took the new trail cam out for its first official test drive.  I walked to a spot behind a local ranch that we call the bone pile.  If anything dies on the ranch the owners haul it back there and leave it for the varmints to clean up.  I thought I might find a fresh bait to set the camera over.  Apparently nothing died on the ranch over the winter.  Good for the rancher, but no fresh bait for me.  I sat down on a log and took a mouth blown predator call from my pocket.  After just a couple of minutes of calling I saw a coyote sneaking through the timber.  I looked around a little and found some old bear scat.  Bears are out of hibernation now, and they regularly check these places where they have found food in the past.  I left the camera there, strapped to a tree.

Yesterday I went back for the camera which had been out for a week.  I could tell that it had been triggered several times, so I brought it home so I could view the images on the computer.  This black tail doe looks like she must have had a hard winter.  She isn’t in very good shape.

The camera was set to take 1 still photo followed by 15 seconds of video.



I got a night time still shot of a blurred coyote.  He must have been moving right along as the video missed him entirely.




There was another badly blurred image that I think is another coyote, but it’s really hard to tell.  There was also another photo of a deer, but it was barely within the frame and cut its head off.  The camera made several more exposures, but I can’t see anything there.  Maybe it was triggered by a passing bird, or just movement of tree branches due to wind.  There were several windy days last week.  So that’s it for the first time out for the trail cam.  Nothing spectacular, but at least I didn’t get a blank.  I’m heavy into spring chores now, so it will be awhile before I get a chance to set the cam out again.  I have several different places in mind.    

My new toy

I've been bitten by a bug!  I've been reading an interesting blog lately by a fellow in Australia.  I'm intrigued by that country in general, and by the wildlife and Aboriginal people in particular.  Lately this fellow (Dave) has been posting some photos and video clips taken with a trail cam set up out in the bush.  Photos and video of kangaroos and wallabies.  Fantastic!  Well, the bug bit me.  Of course trail cams have been around for awhile, but I've never owned one.  The results from older models I have seen were unimpressive, but they have come a long way since then.  I just had to try one.  I've had it in my hands for a few days now, and for a first trial run I set it up in my back yard.

I had no expectation of digitally capturing any wildlife, but I have a flock of free ranging chickens and a flock of pigeons that would do for test subjects.  Yesterday I strapped the camera to a clothes line pole in the yard and set it to take still photos.  It is set to take 2 still photos about 5 seconds apart, then pause and reset itself after a minute.  The photo at the top of this post is the result.  The original was a little dark, and not as sharp as a photo taken with one of my still cameras, but I was able to correct both problems with an editing program.

Today I put the camera out in the yard again, but this time set to record video.  I set it to record 15 seconds of video, but I can increase that to 30 seconds if I want to.  As before, the camera will reset after a minute and repeat any time it senses movement within range.  The result is below.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the camera also takes a still photo before it begins recording video.  As with the still photo, the image was a little dark and not as sharp as it would have been if taken with a good digital video camera, especially a HD camera.  I lightened the exposure with an editing program, but there is not much I can do to sharpen it.  Not bad though if you take it for what it is, and don't try to view it full screen.  The next step will be to set it out in the woods for a week or more and see what I come up with.  It has often been said that wildlife photography is like hunting with a camera.  Using the same train of thought, setting up a trail cam might be compared to setting a trap; whether setting over bait or a blind set on a well used game trail.  I expect to have a lot of fun with this.








  

Just prowling around

Yesterday afternoon was nice, but today outdid itself.  25 degrees this morning, but 60 this afternoon according to the thermometer on my porch.  I went out to prowl around and see if anything had been moving around.

Melting snow and water running everywhere, and lots of mud.  A couple of deer ran across the road in front of me before I left the pavement, but they didn’t even slow down.  No chance for photos or video there.  I even saw some ground squirrels out and about; a sure sign of spring.  Lots of deer tracks in the snow and I found a couple of fox tracks and a coyote track, but they were old melted out tracks and I didn’t bother trying to call them in.  I finally found a couple of deer didn’t spook at the sight of me.

Unfortunately they were in considerable shade and didn’t show up as well as I would have liked, but when photographing wildlife sometimes you take what you can get.  I’m still learning the ropes with the new camera, and this was a good opportunity to try out the optical qualities of the zoom lens.

There are 3 settings for the lens.  The first setting is for 10X optical zoom.  The second setting is for 40X digital zoom, and the third is for 200X digital zoom.  Digital telephoto is seldom as good as optical.  I first shot a short sequence at 10X optical zoom, but it was a long reach for the lens, and no chance to approach closer.  I quickly switched to 40X digital, but didn’t use full power.  Looking at the finished results, it isn’t quite as sharp as the footage shot with the optical feature, but acceptable.  Good enough.

I went on and let Bear run ahead of the truck to stretch his legs for awhile until I reached an especially snowy corner.  Someone else had turned around there, so not wanting to push my luck I did the same.  We went back down the road to a wide spot and stopped for lunch, then poked along home without sighting anything more of interest.    

They're baaack.

Neighborhood pets

Some of the neighborhood pets.  I shot this while standing in my yard.

 

Trout flies

A good neighbor just dropped off some hand tied flies.  Thank you Chuck!

 

Stomping grounds

In my last post I showed the place where I roost.  Here are a couple of short videos that show some of the surrounding country that I have to play in.  Of course I’m still playing with the new camera, but I think I have it figured out.  What a difference high definition makes!  I’ve had one person tell me that she had trouble with the sound on both of these clips, but I played them back here and they are fine.  If anyone else has a problem please let me know. 

 

 

First snow - 2012

 

We’ve had a couple of dustings of snow, maybe an inch on the ground, but this was the first significant snow of the season.  This video is a couple of days old, and most of the snow is gone already.  At least here around the house.  It’s unseasonably warm now and we’ve had some sprinkles of rain.  I’m afraid it hasn’t helped our snow pack much.  The melting snow is going right down the river.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about high definition video it’s that the files that are produced are huge!  To large to upload a clip of any great length to a hosting site; at least not at my connection speed.  For instance, this video is just over 5 minutes long, and at high definition the file is over 600 mbs.  I have DSL, but not the high speed version.  Upload time would have been over 2 hours!  I had to keep playing with it, reducing the resolution little by little, until I came up with a file of a manageable size.  The original is fantastic here on my monitor, but unfortunately you can’t see what I see. 

Time for an upgrade

Well I took the leap.  I’ve been thinking for awhile about a high definition video camera; just needed the proper nudge.  It’s almost impossible to keep up with the technology.  By the time you get a new camera out of the box it is already outdated, or so it seems.  My first video camera was analog.  The year after I bought it everything went digital.  I was almost happy when a horse fell on it and smashed it beyond repair.  That camera was replaced by my first digital camera which has served me for the last few years; but it has now become a dinosaur with the advent of high definition video cameras.  There were some really great sales, almost half price, over this holiday season; and I thought if I was ever going to do it this was the time.  The new camera arrived a couple of days ago, and yesterday I took it out for a test drive.  I was really hoping for some shots of wildlife, but settled for a static scene just to get some footage recorded.  I also have a new editing program to get the hang of.  

 I set the camera to record at the highest resolution possible.  Today I waded through the instructions for the editing program and downloaded the attached video to my computer.  I have a 24 inch HD monitor for the PC, and what I am seeing there is fantastic compared to what I am used to.  I uploaded this clip to YouTube, and oh boy.  I have DSL, but not the high speed version.  It took an hour to upload this sort clip.  Maybe I need to reduce the resolution some before an upload?  The longer videos that I see on YouTube all the time must be uploaded by someone with a very fast connection speed, or they are lower resolution to start with.  I’ll do a little more reading on the subject tomorrow, and any advice from people with more experience is welcome.  This is a whole new ball game to me.   

Called in a ? today

Went out to try a little predator calling today.  On the first stand I saw something come down the hill and stop right at the edge of the brush line.  I couldn’t be certain, but I think it was a bobcat.  I had a video camera set up on a tripod, and I looked down to turn it on.  When I looked back up the critter was gone.  I tried calling awhile longer but it wouldn’t come back.  We were on bare frozen ground, but I turned my dog loose anyway to see if he might get lucky.  He was gone quite awhile, but eventually came back.  All he got out of the deal was exercise.  It’s really not difficult to call predators, and not much harder to shoot them.  Catching them on video is what is hard!

I went back to the truck and drove up the road toward another good spot.  On the way I saw these tracks in a bit of snow.

Yep, the bobcat’s larger cousin with a long tail. – Cougar.

I set up for another try at calling, but drew a blank there.

Uh oh - but I got lucky

It’s been awhile since I’ve been out due to bad weather and chores around home, but I set out this morning to try a little predator calling.  I hiked up a long ridge that seems to be getting steeper all the time, but I have a good spot to call from up there.  I got my stand all set up and reached in the side pocket of my back pack for the remote control unit of my electronic call.  I came up empty!  Huh?  I searched the other pockets of the pack with no better luck.  I use a mouth blown call as much as I do electronics, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember where I had used the e-caller last.  I racked my brain and narrowed it down to 1 of 2 possible places, both miles apart.  I still couldn’t be sure which place I had used the call last, and aside from that we have had a lot of rain since then.  I had my doubts if the small electrical unit would still be in working order even if I was lucky enough to find it.  There was one other possibility.  The weather had been colder, and I was sure I had worn a heaver coat on at least one of those stands.  It was possible that I had put the remote unit in the pocket of that coat.  Not my usual routine, but it was possible.

At any rate, that wasn’t helping me now.  I had climbed all the way up this ridge, so I decided to go ahead with the stand and see what developed.  I hung the caller on a low limb of a tree and set it to play one continuous sound, then settled back to watch.  This is all that showed up.

 That’s a Stellar’s blue jay, one of the most frequent visitors to a predator call.  Actually there were several of them, but this is the only one that sat still in one place long enough to shoot a few seconds of video.  The sound you hear coming from the electronic call is that of an injured woodpecker.  It’s a good sound to play for fox and bobcat, but jays will come to almost anything.

After walking back to the truck I ran Bear up the road for a little exercise, then parked at a nice spot to eat lunch.  The missing remote for the e-caller was still bothering me, so I decided to call it a day and headed for home.  When I walked in the house the first thing I did was get my heavy coat out of the closet and go through the pockets.  There was the remote, tucked into the inside pocket.  I put it back in the side pocket of my back pack where it should have been all the time!