January 30, 2012 What Goes Bump in the Night?

Bill & I are at Celeste's, here near Glen Rose, Texas.  Last year Victor made a "real" RV site for us about 100' from their house.  He and Bill put in a waterline, electric box and dump station, and while we were in Maine last summer, Victor had a gravel "pad" put in when he had his driveway graveled. 

The weather has been too windy to put out our awning...  and too wet to put out our big outside rug.  That bin outside the door holds my bags of birdseed...   the garbage can at the rear of the rig holds our recyclables.

You can barely see Celeste's house at the right side of the photo.

No matter where we go, if at all possible, we put out bird feeders. 

We have 2 of these Shepherd Hooks outside our motorhome that presently hold 4 bird feeders and one bird bath (more like a drinking pan). 

Often there are a hundred or more goldfinch feeding.  They're in their winter plumage now, so you might not recognize them as goldfinch.  We also get house finch, cardinals, chickadees, titmice, and juncos.  Wrens and mourning doves come around but neither are interested in the feeders.  And lately we've been seeing some Eastern Bluebirds.  There are nesting boxes hung in various locations on the property, so they are probably checking those out.

For the past couple of years I've been putting out Game Cameras where ever we are.  These are hardy enough to be outside in the weather and they are activated by being motion sensitive.  In other words, they only take pictures if they sense movement.  Kind of like an outdoor light that comes on when you walk on to the property. 

The cameras we use take color photos...  and we've programmed them to also record the date and time of day. 

This is a daytime picture taken around 3pm yesterday afternoon.  They can be programmed to show the temperature, the moon phase and location of the camera.  We have both a Bushnell and a Moultrie, and I've worked with Cuddeback and Reconnex.  Depending on how many bells and whistles you want, the base price ranges from around $100 to...  $500 or $600 on up.  We've found that the Bushnell (around $150) is every bit as good as the high end Cuddeback.

There are a lot of deer in this area.  We've seen as many as 15 does milling around the deer feeder in the above picture. That particular feeder is battery operated and spins out a measured amount of corn on a programmed schedule.  Victor has one in the backyard and this one...  which is a couple hundred feet in front of our motorhome. 

There is also a washtub full of water  they use as a drinker at this location. 

I just got around to putting out the camera yesterday and here's what visited the feeder last night:

This nice 8 point buck visited several times during the night.  Since this isn't rutting season he'll travel alone now. 

Well, I guess he did get some company.  This big jackrabbit also visited several times during the night.  By the way, the buck is a white-tail deer...  the same kind found in the eastern US. 

The pictures appear as black and white because they were taken during the night hours. 

I felt pretty good about picking up pictures of these critters within the first 24 hours out.  It will be fun to see what else goes "bump in the night" as time goes on.

All for Today....