Life as a Moose Calf

Moose are born mostly legs but grow rapidly. Their only job is to follow mom around. However, the life of a moose calf is a harrowing ordeal. Only 20% make it through their first year. If they can make it over that hump, they will likely make it many more. Their most formidable opponent is the winter tick. Capturing pictures of these guys every week, I was able to watch them grow up. Only weeks old in the first set of pictures, they will face many challenges, but they continue to look strong and have good habitat.

 

I'm always a season behind with camera trapping because I am only able to check most of my cameras every 3 to 6 months. This pictures sequence starts in early June and runs until September.

Winter Life for the North American Beaver

The above video is a series of short clips taken this winter of an animal extremely well adapted to cold New England Winters. Despite average night-time temperatures of -15 F°, this beaver left it's lodge to forage and was never bothered by the cold. Peak activity was from 1-3am and not one clip was recorded during daylight hours. This is a two minute condensed version from 4+ hours of footage during a one week filming period.

Weasel on a log

 This photo of a weasel was taken at 3:54 am. Weasels are built like a snake, basically just a head and tail. Being long and thin has it's advantages, such as fitting into small holes and spaces to find their favorite prey-mice. It also has its disadvantages...with lots of surface area weasels lose heat quickly and require a fast metabolism to keep warm, which means they are constantly moving, hunting, and searching for calories.

Young Beaver on the Dam

Beaver crossing from Peter Abdu on Vimeo.

Here's a quick video I shot last week while filming the north American Beaver (Castor canadensis). The more time I spend in the woods the more I've gravitated to beaver ponds. I've come to sincerely appreciate these ecosystem engineers and it's always easy to find a great set of tracks in the mud.

If you turn the volume up you will notice a chirp near the end of the clip (~14 seconds). Also note that at the end of the clip the beavers were trying to move the camera. I have 10 minutes worth of video in which multiple beavers try to work the camera free. Beavers certainly are determined and well adapted mammals, but ultimately it was the curiosity of a black bear cub that did this camera in.

The Fox Den

        A couple posts ago I talked about my attempts to find a fox den. I'll let the pictures do the talking, but after many many more woodchuck dens I finally found what I was looking for. This wouldn't have been possible without the generous help of a landowner who allowed me to place cameras on his property.