Trail camera pictures (December 2017)

I went this morning and removed my two trail cameras from Mission Creek Park.  Animal activity has decreased greatly in the past month.  During November the two cameras recorded over 1,600 pictures combined.  The same two cameras in December recorded less than 600 images.  Part of the difference was the primary deer rut (mating season) occurred in November; by December bucks had largely stopped chasing does so there was less deer movement overall.  A second factor affecting movement was increased activity at the park - Snow means crowds of people sledding!  Finally, snow and cold weather hinders the movement of many of the smaller animals that I typically capture on camera such as opossums, raccoons, and squirrels.

Here are a few of the images captured since December 1st. 

A buck chasing a pair of young does on 02 December

A small buck on 04 December

Snow fell on 09 December - it's still easy for squirrels to dig through at this point

A herd of does and fawns in deeper snow on 18 December

Deeper snow makes it more difficult for squirrels to search for hidden caches of nuts

With mating season mostly over bucks have started to form small groups - there was a group of three small bucks that appeared on camera several times over the past three weeks.

Another one of the three young bucks

 

The squirrels seemed to be spending as little time on the ground as possible