Black Bear

Went back to last summers picture of this black bear, been sick the last 3 weeks with bronchitis. The air has been so cold that I never even checked my cameras for over 10 days.

Hawk in the evening

This picture was taken in the evening around 5:30 and gives a nice darker background with the flash showing on the Hawk.

I try to check my cameras every couple days when set for birds. You never really know how they will land on the log or how the pictures will look, so you might need to adjust the camera. Sometimes on a good location I will set several cameras up at different angles to get the best picture.

Golden Eagle - back to the camera

When I checked my camera, I saw two adult Golden Eagles in a tree about one hundred yards from the camera location. I watched them and they soared right over my head as they left. Had two pictures of one of them on the camera, but wish it would have looked into the camera.

They aren't that common on the west side of the mountains in Washington but do come in looking for food during a bad winter. Last photo I have was two years ago.

Sometimes even a Possum makes a good picture

I hardly ever set my trail cams for possum, but do get quite a few pictures of them walking by on the trails. Sometimes it can be risky to set the cameras so close if a large animal walks by, but often everything turns out as in this photo.

It takes a lot of trial and error to get the correct lighting for this type of photography.

Daydreaming Coyote

This is the coyote picture that was taken after the bobcat stepped over the blackberry vine. The coyote must have been daydreaming to drag it's feet and get the vine hung up on the front legs.

Can't even imagine a coyote in this situation, but I'll bet it jumped ten feet when the flash went off.

Human scent test - Bobcat

This is a well used predator trail so I decided to make a test to see if human scent bothers animals that use the trail. There was a blackberry vine growing across the trail, I raised it just up about 4 inches and then strung it up the tree and wrapped it to a limb. Then rubbed my hands onto the vine just in the middle of the trail.

Checked the cameras today and got several bobcats walking over the vine and never even bothered them. I had to laugh at the coyote picture as it walked by but will save that picture for later.

This is big for a bobcat.

Mink adapting to camera

This was a test to learn more about how mink react to a camera and to accept something new to there environment.

I set the camera up on rods in the open and left it turned off, then hid another camera in the weeds and covered it with moss. The mink did just as predicted by checking out the visible camera and not noticing the 2nd hidden camera. It wasn't bothered by the flash and after a few weeks I could place a camera anywhere and get good pictures.

The hardest problem was keeping the camera lens dry with all the rain and so close to a creek.

Set the Nikon up for bobcats

Picked a time when it wasn't raining to set my Nikon aimed at a log for bobcats with the speed flash several feet above the camera to avoid some of the eye glare.

Was lucky because it snowed last night and would like to get a snow picture of a bobcat

Wet coyote

Animals are getting mighty wet around here so far this winter. This poor coyote is trying to hunt but doesn't look like much luck, even a mouse wouldn't be out in this rain.

The wind blew a limb down in front of the camera and almost ruined the picture.

Bucks are dropping there antlers

Walked through the freezing rain to check the cameras Friday. Not many pictures, but did get this buck showing where he had lost his horns. I think between all the wind and rain it must have washed them off.

Hawk picture I used in my 2007 calendar

Somone liked hawk pictures, so this photo is from my 2007 Calendar. I have been producing calendars for 3 years from some of my best photos of different animals.

Normally I wait till all my calendars are sold before I post some of the pictures, but I entered this one in a contest, so felt I could put it on the blog.

Bobcat sneaking up on the camera

Had several pictures of this bobcat sitting on the log, and then it decided to check out the camera. Was using the board in a double picture mode where the second picture is taken faster than the 10 second delay. This gives a random quick second picture and works great for trails.

It took several more pictures after this photo.

Hawk with hazy background

This would have been better if the background had been clear without any fog.

I have my 600 set up for hawks and used the program settings on it so I could control the ISO and the flash. Still testing to get the best pictures in all conditions. The photo above was not taken with the 600.

I get most of my bird pictures in the winter, it's a lot easier than the summer when they are raising the young.