Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Puma Tales Post Script

I pretty much knew as soon as I posted the last story about how hard it is to get cougar photos, that I would get some more.

It's one of the reasons I wrote it - for the probability bump.

But why did the cat have to pick the Reconyx, my lowest quality camera, to walk by?!

Ah, the joys of camera trapping. :)

Shows how darn fast the Reconyx is though - took 5 shots of the stray cat's strut in 7 seconds:

cougar

cougar

cougar

cougar

cougar

Kitty looks a bit skinny.

Late summer, early fall can be one of their tougher times of year, I hear. The spring's fawns are now wily, sturdy and fast, and they and the does are all herded up for winter. Sure feet and more eyes make the mountain lion's job harder.

But rut and snow are coming soon, and they'll help shift the scales. Rut addles and distracts the big bucks, and makes them easier to ambush. And snow slows pointy-hoofed deer much more than broad, soft-pawed cats.

So, maybe skinny will become a bit more chubby.

The above is "fenceline hill" - a trail that runs uphill along our fence (duh), and goes towards a few homes and large ponds that border the Forest Service lands that surround Yosemite.

And since it is the edge of the wild, lots of other critters passed the cam too.

We'll give them a howdy next.

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4 comments:

  1. Awesome! Great shots!

    Following your example / philosophy, I think I'll have to post about how hard it is to win a million dollars, then sit and wait for the following week...

    :)

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  2. WOW!! That is fast. But I'm surprised the Reconyx doesn't have better picture quality. I'm also going to have to start using your philosophy to get pics.

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  3. Congratulations! Those are great shots. I think the quality looks good for a IR model (at least I think they look less motion blurred than what I often get from my Trophy Cams, hehe) and the speed does look impressive.

    Can we look forward to a warm cuppa homebrew when we say howdy to the other critters? And just to be clear, I don't mind if you dicide to mix in some IR just for variaty ;) Heck, I'll even settle for the good old and familiar Moultrie variaty :P

    Keep them comming!

    (I don't think I got around to posting a comment on some of the recent posts: Those where some great landscapes and month photos you posted recently and as always enjoyed the posts.)

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  4. Thanks all!

    texwisgirl: don't forget to buy the lottery ticket!

    Joe: the Reconyx is only 3 mega pixel, and like all off-the-shelf trail cameras it has a fixed focus, so good shots are pretty hit or miss.

    Henry: like the Moultrie, the Reconyx gets lots of blurry shots, but this cat nicely walked by slowly. And sorry, but all the shots of critters from this fenceline hill set are from the Reconyx. I do have some homebrew pics coming soon though...

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