Bulking up for Hibernation

The weather may be warm now, but this black bear was at our "Bone Yard" bulking up for hibernation. The bear had found our "Bone Yard" where we throw out carcasses, bones and scraps from deer processing. In less than a week the bear had filled memory cards on two game camera with over 3,300 bear photos.

Fall Turkey Hunt

The Fall turkey hunting season is now open and I was able to find some birds in the woods behind our house this morning. I got this nice young bird at 10:30.

Coyote

Checked the game cameras at the "Bone Pile", a place where wildlife can feed on animal carcasses I disposed of. Since there is human scent in this area, the coyotes are very cautious and leery of traps. Coyotes will often check out an animal carcass at this site for days or weeks before taking a bite. This young coyote is checking out the rib cage of a deer that was placed here last December.

Dragonflies

Today's temperature was into the 80's when I went to our cabin pond to look for Wood Ducks to photograph. No ducks on the pond, but I found several Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies. This male Autumn Meadowhawk dragonfly was kind enough to pose for me.

Walnuts

The walnuts are still dropping from the trees. This is loader bucket number 7.

Archery Hunt

Matt was here this weekend to try his luck archery hunting and took this nice 8-point buck. With the temperatures in the 70's for the next few days, we had this buck processed and in the freezer within 24 hour of shooting it.

Milk Snake

With today's temperatures in the mid 40°F and following yesterday 1.03 inches of rain, I didn't expect to find this young eastern milksnake crawling through the leaves. Being cold blooded, this milksnake was sluggish when I found it, but after a few minutes in my warn hands it was ready to be released.

Bears In The Woods

Time to check a couple of game cameras at another location on our property. It had been about a month and the two cameras had over 6,700 photos, of which about 6,000 photos were squirrels. I did get some photos of bears, including this cinnamon bear (Ursus americanus cinnamomum).

The cinnamon bear is a color morph subspecies of the American black bear.

Several photos of black bears at the same location.

Blue Heron

Drove the ATV to the cabin pond this afternoon and found a Blue Heron sneaking around the pond looking for a meal.

Success.

After eating the fish the Blue Heron started to rest at the shoreline ...

The Blue Heron spotted another meal ...

Another fish. I watched this Blue Heron catch at least 3 fish.

Northern Lights

The Northern Lights were visible tonight. Some photos from the hill top at the cabin property.

Looking west.

Looking east

Bears in Bathtub

Pulled the memory cards from the West Hill game cameras today. A lot of activity at the bathtub camera this summer, mostly bears. It started out with just one bear at the tub ...

The next photo had a cub in the tub and if you look closer, a second cub hanging out of the culvert

Cub #1 wasn't happy with mommy's washing style.

Cub #2 watching from the end of the culvert.

Cub #1 swatting at momma.

Cub #1 mocking momma.

As mommy walks away, now there are 3 cubs in the tub.

The cubs continue to play at the bathtub as mommy waits.

The bears continued to visit the bathtub during the summer.

In this photo there a 4 cubs in the tub.

Young Turkeys

I was driving the ATV around the cabin property this morning when I had to stop and let these young turkeys cross in front of me. I was able to get within 25 feet of the turkeys as they were looking for a meal of grasshoppers.

Walnuts

The autumnal equinox marks the start of the Fall season and as the leaves start falling from the trees, so do the black walnuts (Juglans nigra). With an abundance of walnuts at our barn this year, the clean-up/removal of the walnuts from the lawn was complicated by a lack of squirrel volunteers. After removing more than a dozen 5-gallon buckets of the chartreuse spheres in the past week, it was time to bring in the front-end loader.

Grouse

I found at least one grouse in the neighborhood. It's hard to find/see ruffed grouse in this area and even harder to get a photograph of one.

Turkeys

Over the last couple of weeks I've encountered this family of turkeys several times during my wildlife drives on our properties. The turkeys will now allow me to get much closer for photographs and sometimes they will approach me while I'm in the ATV.

I got within 30 feet of the turkeys for this photograph.

The turkeys walked across a field and in front of the ATV for this photograph.