Trail Cameras?

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RenoBart
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 10:22 am

Trail Cameras?

Post by RenoBart »

Hey, any of you out there ever use a trail camera along board lines and AC where you know you have snakes hanging out? Just curious, as I just picked up a cheapo trail camera on Amazon and I was thinking of trying it out near some AC to see when snakes move in and out and around. Anyone have any luck with this?
Jimi
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Joined: December 3rd, 2010, 12:06 pm

Re: Trail Cameras?

Post by Jimi »

I have not deployed any personally but at my work we have lots of them installed in various places. We've got still images of just about every basic kind of wildlife you can imagine, including several snake species. Evidently, even rubber boas crawl fast enough to trigger a trail cam! Ha ha. Really though, we've got a few boa pics from guzzlers way out in the sagebrush. That's no place to actively hunt a boa, so...I judge those images as pretty good gets.

I hear similar stories from colleagues around the country. They work great at snake dens, if you can figure out where to point them. I think you're on a good path. Also, you will probably get some interesting "bycatch". Even some "vignettes" - one of my faves is from a front-country canyon inhabited by all kinds of wildlife, as well as quite a few homeless people. One morning we got a still of a moose, an apparently homeless man carrying a whole sheet cake (???), and a mountain lion. The lion was going in the same direction as the man, about 15 minutes later. We all hoped he made out OK. Tough roommate situation.

People steal them so hide it well. Good hunting!
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RenoBart
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Re: Trail Cameras?

Post by RenoBart »

Thanks for the reply, Jimi. For now, I am going to use it on my own property here in California. I just got it yesterday and tested it out last night down the hill from the house. I set out a can of cat food and I figured I would see a skunk (they're all over here) or a coyote. Sure enough, around 1am, the camera captured several shots of an inquisitive coyote.

I setup several board lines this summer too, as there are loads of snakes around here. It would be cool to observe their ingress/egress from AC so I can better track the times and conditions that they prefer to remain under cover. I would think I could glean some interesting info this way.
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chris_mcmartin
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Re: Trail Cameras?

Post by chris_mcmartin »

On Facebook a few months ago, there was a game-camera capture of a whiptail followed by a coachwhip in hot pursuit.

If the AC is known to house herps, you could just go with an "always-on" camera recording in time-lapse mode (and checking it more frequently for useful footage). I've done that in my yard with a GoPro to document diurnal lizard activity.
Kfen
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Location: CT

Re: Trail Cameras?

Post by Kfen »

Like Chris said, set it up to take a photo every 30 seconds/minute/few minutes. I watched a time lapse video from a trail cam set up at a timber den and it was pretty neat with some interesting information gathered from it.
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