Camera Traps at Ordway: What animals are here?

This summer I had the opportunity to spearhead a new element of the on-going oak forest exclosures project here at Ordway: putting out camera traps! Camera traps are just trail cameras (the only trapping part is catching an animal in a photo or video taken by the camera) that are set out in a designated area to catch photo or video footage of animals in action. Here at Ordway, we are interested in deer herbivory and its impacts on various plant communities, so we put out 11 cameras to specifically catch deer. 

How do these cameras work? 

With both IR and motion sensors, the cameras pick up changes in heat or movement caused by animals (and occasionally plants). When this happens, it triggers the camera to take photos, videos, or both, depending on the settings selected. 

Have you caught any cool photos? 

My favorite part of this project was looking through the photos to see who was wandering around during the study period! Besides catching ourselves doing work on the EREN and RVS projects, we also caught many photos of a variety of animals. Below is a compilation of some of my favorite photos from this summer: 

This photo was one of the few sightings that we had of coyotes this whole summer. There was a mom and her pups living somewhere near this camera location as we saw them a few times walking next to the railroad tracks and heard them responding to practice tornado sirens while surveying plants in the forest.

I love spotting turkeys in the photos! They normally are in very large family groups on the Ordway property, so if you scare one while you are hiking around you will likely end up scaring about 6 or 7. And contrary to popular belief, turkeys can fly but I have yet to catch one flying in a photo. 

Some of the funniest photos are when deer are sprinting through the forest! They suddenly appear in one photo and are just as quickly gone in another. This photo shows the white tail that gives white-tailed deer their namesake. Often, you will hear crashing through the brush and see just a glimpse of a white tail as deer run through the woods. 

When I was looking for photos for this post, I stumbled upon this one. Can you spot the deer?!?

I was so excited to catch a fawn in the cameras as we had seen a few when we were out hiking the property. This one was hanging out with mom for a while right in front of the camera!

Very spooky! Sometimes all you can see in the night photos are eyes, and it takes a while to figure out who the eyes belong to; these are white-tailed deer. The pair in the middle seems to be a fawn based on the height difference to the other two pairs. 

The bucks are starting to get their antlers! Right now, which you can see in this photo, they are smaller and more velvet-y. In the fall, once they are fully grown, the deer will rub off the velvet covering the antlers.

Sometimes the deer are a little curious and check out the cameras. This deer came up to the camera just to say hi! 

This is my favorite photo series from this specific camera and maybe of the entire summer. Did you know that the spots on fawns are meant to act as camouflage for them as they lay in vegetation? This little guy hung out near this camera for a few days, so we got plenty of photos.

This is so cool! Is there any way that I can help? 

Yes! In addition to figuring out our procedure and setting out the cameras twice over the summer, I created a way that anyone could get involved with the project. Because the cameras are out for 2-3 weeks at a time, you can imagine that they take A LOT of photos! Data processing can take a while and can sometimes have inconsistencies, especially when only one or two people are looking at each photo. This is where you can help! By visiting https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/clairesofiawiley/deer-in-the-spotlight you can look through camera trap photos like the ones above and help us organize and process all of our data. This work is really important, and 15 people need to look at each photo to ensure data processing accuracy. Plus you get to look at some really fun photos.

Visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/clairesofiawiley/deer-in-the-spotlight to learn more about this project and help us process some of these photos! 

- Claire Wiley 🐻