June Game Camera

It was a chore walking into the woods to retrieve SD cards this go around. I had not been on the property for a month, and boy did the vegetation fill in!  A few large trees had fallen over the “path” in, and clearly every spider in the county set up shop along the same route.  But what seemed like an easy early morning task turned out to be quite an adventure, I just had to slow down to enjoy it.

Shortly after parking the truck I flushed the two resident great-horned owls from the large American elm tree they spend their day in.  I try and try to sneak up on them and see them before they fly, but never win.  This day was no different.  Along the path I discovered a large patch of wildflowers, I think vervain, along the creek.  They seemed to be swarming with bumblebees, and it was great fun to watch them move from flower to flower.  In the same area I stumbled onto a large patch of blackberries that somehow I never knew was there.  The ripening berries need another week or two of seasoning but I will be back to collect some of those.

I found a few small tree frogs along the edge of the woods, and a large leapord frog seemed to keep following me as well.  The muddy creek was full after a week of rain, but I couldn’t see any fish or turtles along the shoreline.  I spend so much time here during the late fall and winter, but all of vegetation made it look like a different place.

I managed to find the cameras OK and it was nice to find them all in working order.  Again the 3 cameras contained almost 1,000 images, almost completely of deer as anything smaller is obscured by the vegetation.  There were a few turkeys, and a night time coyote, but the rest were deer.  There appears to be at least two new fawns, and quite a few bucks using the property.  The two bucks pictured above always hang out together, and I believe that they are brothers from 2 years ago that were frequently together on camera last year as well.

There are a few different apparent 8 pointers on camera so far, but will be interesting to see how they develop and if others show up.  Still no sign of the big bruiser we saw late season so I hope that he is still around.  Time will tell, I’m already excited to see what July has in store for the cameras.

I do hope to find some time to get out and clear the pathway of the trees and to knock down some more of the vegetation around the cameras.  Of course knowing that there are some blackberries waiting for me might be enough motivation.  Maybe THIS time I will sneak up on the owls….