A Water Hole in Summertime

Shyla and I tend to stay in the bright open areas of the forest and meadows during our outings.

At the same time, there's a wilder part of the forest where the animals are carrying out their daily routines. I've learned that water holes are active places in the forest, especially in the summer.

If I were to place a trail camera on any random tree in the forest, I could go a whole year without getting a photo of a single animal. In contrast, if I find the places that attract animals like water holes and bear marking trees, my trail cameras see far more activity.

I mentioned earlier this summer that I'd found a new water hole. It seems to attract all sorts of wildlife. In the video that I'm about to show you, it attracted Tiny, our huge black bear, and it also attracted a mountain lion. I believe the mountain lion is a female who might have kittens in the area. She's been appearing on my cameras far more frequently than most mountain lions, suggesting that young kittens are stashed somewhere nearby.

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

I think it's interesting that bears love to soak in the water while the mountain lion seemed only interested in drinking (and possibly waiting to see if any prey came to the water hole). I wonder what a coyote would do? I am quite certain that dogs would splash around and get soaked in it!

An autumn-winter morning

Today, we finally made it out for actual sunrise, and the light was beautiful. The winter is the season when our small slice of the world gets a direct view of the actual sunrise - and I love it.

A thin layer of clouds sat to our east, dimming the sunrise light just slightly and making the forest look even more peaceful than usual.

It was a quiet morning, without anyone else around, even though it is the first day of rifle season for large game around here. Shyla reflected my watchfulness.

Both Shyla and I were clad in blaze orange, and my eyes and ears were alert for hunters. I simply worry about being in the wrong place at the wrong time when people are roaming the forest with powerful weapons. I thought that today might be tense because we've had hunters cruising the road near our house all week, looking for the biggest deer and elk. I'm glad that my prediction was wrong.

Just the other night, a beautiful buck was mesmerized by a trail camera that is very far from any road. He is wearing a big rack! I'm not sure how to count points, but he has either 4 or 5 per side!

He moved in closer to examine the soft red glow of the infrared flash, and then he vanished.

He must have lived a lot of years to get such magnificent antlers. I hope he knows to lay low for the next few weeks so he survives to pass along his genes to another generation.

Happy Saturday. Be safe.