I put the Moultrie GameCam out by the inedible pear tree last Saturday night, November 29, 2008. In front of the camera I scattered inedible pears from said tree and some cracked corn.
I let the camera grab images for the next couple of days but the most activity occurred on November 29th, coincidentally the night all the food was put out.
The video slide show I put together captures the sheer volume of action that happens at a food source at night, while we humans are sleeping. We can occupy these same spaces during the daylight hours, completely oblivious to what went on in that exact spot the night before. We might notice that the amount of food is reduced or that there's some additional animal poop on the ground. But we don't really KNOW what went on there until we get to see the images recorded by one of these handy, remote, motion-sensing cameras.
I believe I got images of seven animal species in this single 24-hour period: eastern cottontail rabbit, white-tailed deer, gray squirrel, northern cardinal, Boston terrier, Homo sapiens, and Virginia opossum.
Just after midnight on the 30th of November, two more species walked in front of the camera: a feral house cat and a raccoon. But they were too slow to make this slideshow of all the visitors on the 29th.
When watching the video, you can note the time at which each image was taken in the black band across the bottom, along with the outside temperature, moon phase, and barometric pressure.
This is pretty fascinating stuff—at least to me.
I hope you like it, too.
Thanks to the Magic option in GarageBand for the help with the country-fried soundtrack.
