Hike Findings

I took another walk out to the northeast of the cabin looking for hunting spots and just exploring. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the forest denizens that I've been capturing on my trail cam, but no such luck. I did have a nice, peaceful walk though. I was out for maybe an hour. I didn't walk too far. I followed the trail to the east until it turned south toward a neighboring cabin. I left the trail and went northeast off the trail then proceeded north up over the side. After cresting the hill at the first bench, I spent a little time scouting for good hunting spots in the area. I found several places where I plan to sit when deer season rolls around.


As I was making my way back toward the cabin on the trail, I came across some objects laying on and next to a rock that caught my attention. Upon further examination, I determined them to be owl pellets. They were clumps composed of animal hair, some unidentifiable gray material and at least one piece of what appeard to be bone.








Just before I returned to the cabin, I made one other interesting discovery. About 40 yards east of the cabin site, I found an animal bone. From it's size, I would guess that it's from a deer. Bears will kill and eat fawns, so maybe this was a remnant of a recent kill. The bone was stripped clean and there were visible gnaw marks on the surface. I'm thinking that a smaller animal like a raccoon drug the bone off from where the carcass was located and gnawed on it; leaving it in the woods where I found it.

New Trail Cam Visitor

Had another 500-plus pictures on the trail cam when I visited on Sunday (4/3), including two new visitors to the area.

Of all the creatures I thought that I might capture in my trail cam pics, a housecat wasn't one of them. There are some people who live up there permanently so it's either their pet or a stray.















I have several dozen pictures of this bear. I'm thinking that he or she just came out of hibernation recently as I had not seen the bear before. The first bear picture I got was only a few hours after I had put out the new mineral lick.















I had several more photos of Bandit, the resident raccoon. While I was out on a hike, I found a tree that could possibly be Bandit's home. I'll have to get a picture of it the next time that I venture out onto the trail.















Below are a bunch more bear and deer pictures. In the second picture, it appears that there are buttons visible just behind the eyes of the deer in the foreground so I'm thinking it's a young buck. Maybe a trophy in a few years? Let's hope so.