Lodge Cam Update Pt. 2

Well, we went out and checked on the cam today and confirmed what we thought…it’s not going to work.  Here’s a picture it took of the lodge in the daytime.Here’s what we got at night.  Well, this isn’t good at all!  The cam is too far away, the beaver moves too fast to get a clear picture and well, this just isn’t going to work out.So we decided to move it again.  There’s a small floating  bog out there that we call Goose Island.  At first we thought it was an island and the geese really liked sitting on it, hence the original name.  This summer with all the rain, it started to break up and move around.  Anyway, we see the beavers get up on this every evening and morning and it’s right next to the T-bar perch.  So that’s where we put the cam this time. Jim even went back and got a fresh limb to entice the beavers up onto to the bog.   This should work.   It may be a few days before we go back out for the card, but I've got my fingers crossed that we will get a couple good pictures.

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When I loaded up the cam pictures this morning, I was surprised to see this big ol’ tom turkey pecking around in the field yesterday.    We haven’t seen the nice buck since Saturday night, but we haven’t given up on him yet.  He may be out running around looking for ladies.  

Lodge Cam Update

In order to check the cam that’s pointed at the beaver lodge, we have to go out in the boat and that’s what we did yesterday.See all the branches out there in the water?  That’s what the beavers will feed on this winter.  I’m sure they’ll keep adding to it, but so far they have a pretty good supply.We pulled up to the cam and were disappointed to see only 3 sets of pictures had been taken.  One was when Jim first set it and one was from when we just arrived.  I carefully removed the card…sure didn’t want to drop it in the water and checked to see what we got on the other set of pictures.  All we could see were ripples in the water.  So I put the card back in and we decided to wait a few days before we check it again.  We’re thinking this may not work out at all.  We know the beavers have been working on the lodge, but every morning and night, there’s lots of steam rising from the pond.  Most likely the lens gets fogged up and it just can’t work.  But, how do you know if you don’t try?

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With most of the leaves down, it’s easy to notice the ones that are left.  Yesterday we walked through an area that was logged this spring.  The poplar trees shot up straight and tall and some of them have leaves as big as a dinner plate.  Just look at the size and colors of these leaves….
                                               …that came from one of these trees. Why are the leaves so big on such young trees?  Another mystery of nature. 

What a Difference

Last Friday (October 1) our new trail cam took this pretty picture.

So I thought I’d go out at approximately the same time and trip the cam to take a picture one week later.   
Amazing huh?  There’s hardly any leaves left on the trees around here.  It was a pretty fall, but in my opinion, way too short.

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We keep moving the cams around and we’re seeing some new visitors around here.  A gray fox and a bobcat have had their pictures taken a couple nights in a row.
And we’re always happy when we see the big buck’s picture.  It’s the time of year when he could make any hunter very happy.
This is the little guy we call Spikey.  He looks  like a Billy goat! This morning we were sitting here looking out the window and noticed how much bigger the beaver lodge is compared to earlier in the summer.   So Jim decided we’ve seen enough deer pictures and it’s time to  move a cam out by the lodge.  He’s out there right now with a cam attached to a metal fence post, aiming it at the lodge.  Now, this should be interesting.

Dam Cam

After getting a new trail cam last week, we decided to move the other one down by the dam.  Jim used a bungee cord and attached it to a pitch fork for easy maneuvering.  But mainly because we knew this was just a test to see if we could get a picture of one of the beavers working on the dam.  The first night we got a bad picture of a beaver swimming past the cam.  As the temperature dropped it caused the lens to fog up and we didn’t get any other pictures until after the lens cleared around 11:00 the next morning. 

So yesterday Jim repositioned the cam, moving it back some and aiming it right at the dam.  One problem.  The beavers sealed just about every leak in the dam and no water was coming over it, but  Jim changed that!  He made a small indentation in the mud, causing water to go rushing over it.  We think the sound of running water makes the beavers crazy!  Anyway it worked and we got pictures of this small beaver fixing the leak.

First it had to check out the situation.

Then it swam off and came back with a branch to add to the mud.

It did a little more swimming around, gathered a few more branches, then turned and smiled at the camera!   LOL

It did some more repair work, but hasn’t finish up yet.   You can see on the right side of this picture, there’s still water running over the dam.  This may be a slightly confusing picture.  It was very calm this morning and the trees you see are reflections from the hill on the other side.  Ignore the temperature on it.  It was cool, but not 23 degrees.  More like 33 or so.
Trail cams are really a lot of fun.  You just never know what’s lurking around out there.  Deer, raccoons, bunnies, bear, bobcats…and now beavers.

Today’s Wildlife Moment

We were just getting ready to have breakfast when we heard a strange noise.  We both looked at each other with that “what was that?” look.  To me it sounded like the window in the storm door coming down.  Jim thought it was something shifting in the freezer.   It didn’t sound like anything was broken, so we continued getting the milk, cereal and juice out.  After breakfast, I went into the bedroom to make the bed and discovered what made the noise.  A grouse flew head on right into the bedroom window.  Smashed a big whole in the glass and ended up breaking it’s neck.  At least it didn’t break both panes of glass.  Poor thing…what a way to start the day.Good thing we were planning on going to Superior today.    I had some pictures I uploaded to Walgreens and wanted to pick up and we needed to do laundry.  So we took the window along and will have to go back again later in the week to pick it up.

It was the first time we took our laundry to the big city laundromat.  This one was really nice…it has lots and lots of washers & driers, TV, video games and free Wi-Fi.  Very nice & very clean.  I love getting 2 weeks of laundry washed, dried and folded in about an hour and a half.

Busy Barney the Beaver

This is the reason Jim put wire fencing around our trees down by the pond.  Look at the size of that stump!  And there’s not a branch left on it either.   This tree was growing on our neighbor’s property, but now it’s being used as food for the beavers and material to build up the dam.  Darn that Barney!

The other morning I saw him swimming across the pond with a leafy branch dragging behind him.  It was a really pretty time of day…steam rising off the pond and the sun shining on the trees in the background.  I liked the picture of it so much I sent it into the local TV station and they used it on their weather segment the next morning.  Now I’ve had my 15 seconds of fame to go along with the 15 minutes I had this summer.Sure glad to see so many Space friends coming over to Blogger.  I really don’t trust Windows Live anymore.  I moved all my stuff over to Wordpress, but it’s just so I have it in storage somewhere.  I don’t plan on using that blog at all.   I like Blogger and so many other apps that Google provides.   Picasa for photo editing and online albums, I use Google Docs so I can access certain documents no matter where I am, Google Reader for all my RSS feeds and I love Gmail and all of it’s features.  MSN has some nice things, like Live Writer, but that’s about the only app of theirs I use anymore.