March 4, 2019
I had been away from the property almost the entire month, and I was really anxious to retrieve the SD cards so that I could get a grasp of what had been going on in February. Surprisingly, there were far fewer images recorded on all three of the Wildgame Innovations game cameras that we monitor. In fact, the most remote camera on the property held only 4 images. Of those 4 images, one was me, two were squirrels, and the fourth was a tresspasser apparently looking for sheds. Talk about a major bummer.
The highlights
The game cameras captured numerous images of predators this month, including several coyotes, a few images of a bobcat, and one blurry image of a fox (not included below). The coyotes appear to be thriving this winter for sure. The bobcat is exciting as we have not seen one out there for several months. I just think that they are a cool critter and I’m still waiting for a real life close encounter with one.
A new visitor
While we don’t have many high quality images, a skunk visited one of the camera locations several times during February. Even though the skunk is not a game animal or something that I hope to have a close encounter with, its still fun for me to see the variety of wildlife present. This is the first capture of a skunk that I am aware of this past year.
What about the deer?
Of course we still saw plenty of deer on the cameras. There was a nice 8 point buck still holding antlers on February 21, and a smaller buck holding on a few days later. It is possible the deer seen on February 27 was that small buck who since dropped the antlers, but I am not sure. However, the deer in the image appears to me to have recently dropped his antlers. No sign of the 2 largest deer that were last seen on camera in late December. They were both fairly transient so I’m not too worried about them yet.
What did we miss?
After seeing countless images of raccoons and oppossum over the past few months, they were hardly recorded at all in February. Though I know they are present, we haven’t seen an armadillo for a while. And for some reason, I hardy ever record an image of a rabbit. If the camera is picking up squirrels and bluejays, certainly the rabbit should trip the shutter as well. Maybe we just don’t have any, thanks to the abundance of coyotes I suppose.
Well thanks for reading along with our February game camera images. Check back next month and see what is going on in the woods while we are all sleeping or at work. Or sleeping at work, if you are the lucky sort. You never know what you are going to find in the MO-Outdoors!
