Mohawk Bear

Now this is one stylish bear. Complete with a Mohawk hairdo.

Turkeys and Fawns

     Finally got some turkeys on camera. They've been keeping a low profile as far as getting on camera this year. One fawn arrives in the second pic and then a second in the third. It always interesting on how different animals interact. These seem to pretty much ignore each other.
     The camera at the Mt. Pond set finally died this week. It had been messing up the past month or so. I brought it home but couldn't breathe life back into it again. Sadly this is the very first trail camera I brought. It's been out in the weather for the past six years taking great pics. I think six years is pretty good for a trial camera that's been active 365/24/7.

The Call of the Maneater

     Well, I was off today so naturally it has rained all morning and is pouring right now complete with rumbles of thunder. Spent the morning in the shop working on some odds and ends things. I came in for lunch and I thought I'd show off my new vintage man-eater book. As some of you old time followers may remember I collect old hunting books. Especially those that are about man-eaters. You can read about it here if you're also really bored today. 
     I recently acquired a new one by Kenneth Anderson named The Call of the Maneater and published in 1961. It contains eight chapters of Mr. Anderson telling about his encounters with man-eating tigers and leopards in India. I've competed two chapters so far. It is very well written and hard to put down but I like to read the books in small sections so I can enjoy them longer. Below is a pic of the book. I always find the covers of the old books the be interesting.
     P.S. I know the stove needs to be polished. Just trust me it's on my honey do list ;). And no it's not getting polished today. I'm not that bored.

Near Encounter

I checked my cameras yesterday morning due to the forecast for rain today. Looking at the time stamps on the Mt. Pond pics I nearly bumped into the sow and triplets. They had walked past the camera about 15 minutes before I arrived. I didn't get all three cubs on camera but looking at the sow I'm sure it's the triplets. Would have made for an interesting morning if I was 15 minutes earlier.
For some reason the camera didn't think there was enough light when the bears came through to switch from IR to color pics. But did when I got there.

Note the cub in the tree on the upper left side.

@!&#*@!! Bears

I'm not real pleased with momma and the three cubs right now. As I mentioned last week I've been using a scent dripper at the upper mountain set. Well this week I found it on the ground chewed up and I have the culprits on camera. They were nice enough to deposit it limb and all right in front of the camera.

 This is what the dripper set looked like prebear. I
had set it to drip on the rock below it.

 They came to the set the day before it got torn down and just played
around it.

Apparently this one thought it would the great to smell like salmon
oil.That was the scent I was trying out.

 Hey look!! A toy for the kids.

 No problem snapping the branch off.

 OK kids. Have fun.

 Now lets check the camera to be sure it's working.

 Yeah! Let's drag it over in front of the camera so Joe will know for
sure it was us.

 This is how they left it.

 Right in front of the camera.

I think I may be able to repair it with some silicone and epoxy.They
just chewed on the cap and screw on part of the main bottle. This was
why I was hesitate to put one of my good drippers out with all of the
bear activity.

Gray Fox

Finally got a good shot of something on camera that wasn't a bear. Don't know about everyone else but I'm getting a little tired of the bears. This one looks like a really nice gray fox. It is unusual to get a daytime picture of one as they are more of a nocturnal animal.

I have been using a scent dripper at the camera site higher up the mountain but haven't had much success. I had a dripper that wouldn't drip that I tried for two weeks. Last week I put my good dripper out and got...more bear pics. I was hoping the scent I was using would attract a wider variety of animals but no luck yet.