Category: Camera

Smile for the Camera

11/6/2015

Uhhh ... anyway, hi you guys. Hi and everything. You know. Hi. Oh -- and, anyway, see ya.

The Lawson Trek's cameras have come down.

It's no biggie -- with the help of zoologist Roland Kays of the Biodiversity Lab at the the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (especially ace young scientist Troi Perkins) we put up a couple camera traps. One in Umstead Park, a state park in Raleigh, the other in Crabtree Creek Nature Park in Morrisville, NC. The Umstead Park one early on gave us a couple bucks in velvet (he stopped in periodically; that's him above, I think), and the Crabtree Creek one was keeping us updated on the activities of a raccoon that seemed to come by most nights. The camera got it coming and going.

Come on: the reflections of its eyes in the water? How cool is that?

Raccoon butt.

Eventually the Crabtree one stopped working, which meant a day that I had to find its coordinates and slog my way back into the squish to retrieve it and figure out what was wrong. We figured it had probably drowned in a rain event -- the cameras do fine in the rain, but nothing electronic likes to be underwater, no matter how waterproof(ish) its casing. I'm told it's working again back in the lab, but that doesn't give us any information on how that raccoon spent the remainder of its summer.

The big buck at the top of the page is one of the last images we got from the other camera, which Troi went to gather back up last week. Enough was enough, and the camera wasn't catching too much, though I was glad to see the buck a last time or so before the camera was liberated.

Kays's lab is part of the eMammal project, with the Smithsonian Institution, that uses camera traps to spot, track, and learn about mammals in the field. He's published research on camera trap use: last year this piece in Methods in Ecology and Evolution on using cameras to quantify levels of animal activity and just this fall this piece in Landscape Ecology about the use of volunteer-run cameras (like ours!) as distributed sensors. Now our cameras, however interesting they were as observation posts, were not part of any experiment. As Roland rightly pointed out, we put ours where we hoped we'd see animals. Actual science would have been putting many cameras randomly over an area to see where the wildlife showed up.

So farewell, cameras -- thanks for being our eyes in the forest, giving us a glimpse into the peregrinations of raccoons and bucks and a glimpse into how the big kids do science.

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Trapping Images of Wildlife

7/7/2015

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Troi and me fooling around in front of a placed camera to see if its motion activation is working. Evidently it was. We were very mobile.

I spent a morning last week getting only the smallest amount of poison ivy with NCSU student Troi Perkins, a double major in zoology and fisheries and wildlife conservation. She came to me through zoologist Roland Kays of the Biodiversity Lab at the the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Kays's lab sorts specimens, identifies species, creates bird skins and the like (the day I visited the lab they were stuffing mice). It also, importantly, is part of the eMammal project, with the Smithsonian Institution, that uses camera traps to spot, track, and learn about mammals in the field. Each month Twitter hosts #CamTrapChat, if you're interested in the specifics. (This month's is July 7 at 4 p.m. EST; here's a Storify of last month's.)

Anyhow Roland got interested in the Lawson Trek, and he offered to help us get a couple camera traps in the field to gather info on the animals that hang around a spot where Lawson was. Then we can leave them in the field for a few weeks, and when I walk to them I'll gather them back up and return them. Meanwhile, we'll see what we see.

Putting them in was a treat. For one thing, Troi and I got to take an awesome walk off trail and into the bush, though for obvious reasons I will not tell you where (I will once the cameras are back home safe). We stayed pretty safe on our first placement, but the second one took us into much less traveled places, and somehow I was idiot enough to wear short pants. Poison ivy let me know I had erred, though I saw it so I tiptoed a lot. Just a couple little itchy spots, if you're wondering.

Not hugging the tree; circling the cord that will hold (and lock) the camera to the tree.

Camera in place, checking time, batteries, location.

Camouflaged! And explanatory note.

Once we found places to put the cameras (we chose placements along Lawson's route and near water, hoping for good sightings; purely scientific placements would have been more random), Troi locked the cameras to trees, took accurate GPS locations, and then, with me, danced around in front of them to make sure their motion sensitivity was appropriately sensitive and they were pointed the right way. That's what you see at the top of this post. At night the camera uses an infrared flash, so it works all night long.

Got one! Raccoon sighting on the first night!

Though as Troi says, "no data is good data" when it comes to actual science and finding out what if anything is hanging around a particular area, we were thrilled when we caught this raccoon at our second placement on its very first night.

Lawson saw raccoons too, and he had this to say about them:

The Raccoon is of a dark-gray Colour; if taken young, is easily made tame, but is the drunkenest Creature living, if he can get any Liquor that is sweet and strong. They are rather more unlucky than a Monkey. When wild, they are very subtle in catching their Prey. Those that live in the Salt-Water, feed much on Oysters which they love. They watch the Oyster when it opens, and nimbly put in their Paw, and pluck out the Fish. Sometimes the Oyster shuts, and holds fast their Paw till the Tide comes in, that they are drown'd, tho' they swim very well. The way that this Animal catches Crabs, which he greatly admires, and which are plenty in Carolina, is worthy of Remark. When he intends to make a Prey of these Fish, he goes to a Marsh, where standing on the Land, he lets his Tail hang in the Water. This the Crab takes for a Bait, and fastens his Claws therein, which as soon as theRaccoon perceives, he, of a sudden, springs forward, a considerable way, on the Land, and brings the Crab along with him. As soon as the Fish finds himself out of his Element, he presently lets go his hold; and then the Raccoon encounters him, by getting him cross-wise in his Mouth, and devours him. There is a sort of small Land-Crab, which we call a Fiddler, that runs into a Hole when any thing pursues him. This Crab the Raccoon takes by putting his Fore-Foot in the Hole, and pulling him out. With a tameRaccoon, this Sport is very diverting. The Chief of his other Food is all sorts of wild Fruits, green Corn, and such as the Bear delights in. This and the Possum are much of a Bigness. The Fur makes good Hats and Linings. The Skin dress'd makes fineWomens Shooes.

So, anyhow, yeah, the whole crab thing is a complete mokeyshine, and I have strong doubts about the business about drowning when trapped by oysters. Lawson was clearly telling tales he heard from Indians or, more likely, from other Europeans. One feels one is hearing a tenderfoot Boy Scout relating tales of his excitement chasing a left-handed smoke shifter. Part of the fun of this entire enterprise is seeing how what we see compares with what Lawson saw. Sometimes the terrain has changed; others it hasn't. Sometimes Lawson describes pretty much what we see, others he sees what he expects to see (like the crab-catchin' raccoon) or what cannot be there. He mentions a tiger later on -- and in the world's best footnote of all time, the editor of my edition says via footnote, "35. There were no tigers in this region." Well, technically, if the region you speak of is the entire Western Hemisphere, right, no tigers. Thanks for pointing THAT out.

In any case, camera traps! The Lawson Trek is on the case.

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Along the Path

Smile for the Camera

Trapping Images of Wildlife

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