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How Not To Use a Game Camera

PatR

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Having a few acres of property in the California foothills, with 1/3 of it left wild to provide wildlife habitat, I thought it would be interesting to set up a couple of game cameras out back to see what made use of the land. Adding some impetus to that was seeing and later capturing a feral kitten doing everything it could to survive raiding my barn cat's food bowl on the front porch at night, and even sleeping with the barn cat on the real cold nights. After capturing and domesticating the feral kitten I later discovered she was one of an identical appearance twin pair. The second is a male that has not left the property for long. So that's the reason for having game cameras. Feeling guilty over not capturing and domesticating both of them is also part of it.

In any event, I set them up a few months ago to cover over lapping approach and departure angles around a shed out back. The set up sort of followed ISR tactics learned overseas;) Everything worked out pretty well until a few days ago. As i usually don't download images for a few days at a time I didn't think twice about the set up after making a couple of changes. Where the cameras had faced into and under the trees I didn't consider the impact how shadows and foliage movement could impact camera function if they were re-positioned to be under trees facing outwards, the reverse of what they had been. The cameras were set to medium sensitivity, three 16mpx images in series 5 seconds apart, followed by a 15 second video using 32gig SD cards. The process would repeat until the card was full then overwrite the card from the beginning until the batteries died.

So we had a couple days where it became a little windy but no big deal, right? After 4 days I went out back to collect the SD cards for download only to find one card had captured over 3800 images and videos while the second card had captured over 1000. Turns out shadows of tree branches moving over the ground would trigger the shutter, and do so every successive second the shadows were in motion. During darkness movement of taller grasses on the ground would trigger an IR image. Made for an awful lot of image review to discard a couple thousand useless images.

Turns out the batteries will hold up a lot better than I thought. After being in constant use since late March they are still holding a pretty good charge. Me thinks I'll dial down the trigger sensitivity a little. For anyone interested, the wildlife is about what we would expect; birds, quail, turkeys, raccoons, possums, fox, cats, and deer. There's a nice fork horn in velvet roaming out back. With any luck he'll get to live long enough to develop a big rack and sire lots of fawns as he won't be bothered here.
 
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Pretty nice having the acreage and the wildlife. I used to go sit in my tree stand at night and observe all the critters making use of my woods. It is amazing what you can see with binoculars in just moonlight. Being twenty feet up a tree also helps mask your presence in the area.

Been back near town for almost 30 years now, but being on a lake we still see plenty of wildlife. Even the two legged variety on boats!
 
I have mastered trail cam setups. I use them A LOT. Shadows are a PITA. I always try to point the lens in a northerly direction so it isn't ever facing the sun and getting washed out. There's pretty much nothing you can do about windy days. Always try to bring a machete to cut down any foliage around that will set off the motion sensor. You also have to think about night shots and how bright the IR LED's are. If there's any sticks, branches, leaves, etc around, the the flash will bounce back into the lens and ruin the photo. I trim all that stuff back. If you live in bear country, invest in bear boxes. I don't know what it is, but bear are interested in trail cameras. I think they see the red glow. Thieves are a struggle too. Every camera I setup, I try to brush it up with rubber bands and whatever natural brush is around. That way it blends in with the environment. And yes, they will take thousands of photos on a single set of batteries. They'll typically last a few months with Li batteries and a 64GB card.
 
Thanks for the tips. For now I’m still using the first set of alkaline batteries in the cams. Amazing how long they last.

In a way I’m glad I was only using 32 gig cards. The 3800 image card only had 136 images on it of any use. The thought of having to review even more useless images is dreadful. The second card was better aimed but still had 999 images, of which only 67 depicted wildlife.

No bears here that I’ve ever heard of. Mountain lions and coyotes are often present though. Not to concerned with thieves and the camera locations. They would have to do some climbing and more than a little huffing and puffing to get to them. There’s no reason for people to go there, they can’t be seen from a street or lower elevations, and I own the high point. To get to the cameras from the high side they would have to get through the gate and deal with the dog. If they managed that they would have to get past the owners, and I’m a helluva shot with rifle or pistol. The wife is not a great shot but believes in double stack mags to compensate[emoji6]
 
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I live in the middle of town in Eureka, CA. But I am adjacent to a greenbelt that is essentially a deep ravine with thick brush and big redwoods. We see deer regularly. One was on my front lawn the other night and did not wander off until I was 1/2-way to the front door. We also have a few bear and numerous red foxes. And was too many skunks and raccoons. I had three skunks living in the crawlspace under my house. That was no fun.
 
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