Bear cruising the beach

          I found an old piece of drift wood and jammed it a couple feet down into a clay riverbed about 10ft from shore. I wired the camera up to the piece of driftwood, and after 5 minutes of tinkering to get the perfect camera angle, I left the camera to do it's work. Hopefully some of these photographs demonstrate not only ways to document a species, but new methods, angles, and ideas for observing and photographing wildlife.
           There were plenty of tracks along the bank to suggest heavy animal traffic, but unfortunately I could only leave the camera out at this location for 5 days. I was hoping for a passing wolf pack, as the tracks showed they had been at this site a week prior, but I was happy with this picture of a big bear wandering by.
           Leaving a remote camera outside always poses a serious risk for the owner. Cases can leak, people can steal them, and animals can destroy them or carry them off among other things. It an especially large risk to leave a camera dangling above the water, were a passing beaver or a curious moose could easily swat it down, but always the believer in "All or nothing" I decided to take the risk in the attempt to get the shot I want. This picture was taken in Wyoming.

Wolf on the cat scat

         This collared wolf paused by the camera, located on a high traffic ridge trail, at 2:00 am to smell a cougar scat left only a week earlier. I didn't expect this this canine to take any interest in feline scat-but wildlife always has a few surprises. Look at the size of the hind legs and paws on this guy! This picture was snapped by my remote camera in western Wyoming.

Elk

A few elk wondered by this mountain trail along with a few other animals (will be posted soon). Mountain trails, especially directly above or below trails, in my experience serve as high traffic areas for wildlife.

A coyote walking away from the camera paused to smell a scat that another Canid left. Canid's often seem to be interested in other Canid sign-seemingly to ignore scent left from Felid's or other animals. Sometimes natural scent works the best, but it's all just one big experiment in the end. I placed a collection of different scats in front of the camera to what would interest the local wildlife. This picture was taken in Wyoming, with many, many more to come.

Finally a picture worth sharing. This photo of a mule deer was taken in Wyoming-the first time I have used my cameras outside of New Hampshire. This photo was taken at 6:39 am as the sun started to climb over the horizon. I was still curled up in my sleeping bag watching the minutes tick by.

A few photo's I took of wildlife in June for Northern N.H. Sometimes the wildlife does all the work for you. It is an amazing time of year.

The Spruce Grouse Dance

      This Spruce grouse put on a little show and the camera was lucky enough to capture it. Spruce grouse normally are often found in bog like areas and start displaying around April/May depending on the weather. Males will clap their wings, fan their tales, and make flutter displays with distinctive noises to attract females. Videos of displays can be found on the web, one such video can be viewed HERE