Who visited the trailcam while we were gone on vacation in April? This is only the second time we've captured a Sandhill Crane. But that's not the surprise...
The Great Lakes, with Michigan at the center.
Before we get to the main event, a bit about where I’m located. I’m inspired by funningforrest’s great maps in his Buckets. So here we go, a sequence of google earth images.
I live in southwest lower Michigan. If you look really hard and put your reading glasses on, you’ll see a small red dot near the center of the image, that’s approximately where our house is located. Over on the coast of Lake Michigan there’s another red dot near Covert, that’s our cottage.
Red outlines my property. The area is a mix of homes, forest, wetlands, fields and farmland. The forested area north of the property is swampy and designated wetland. You can’t tell from this view, but there’s a glacial moraine rising directly to the south of the property. The property is in a conservation easement.
I’ve talked about “the path” many times, here it’s very roughly and not very accurately drawn in red. It starts and stops near the house. You can see the solar panels in the field, and the little white square is a pole barn. The house is hidden by trees. This image must have been taken in the fall or early spring, there’s lots of brown. Other faint paths are deer trails.
I forgot to mark the trailcam location on the map. It’s at the end of the short spur to the east where the path starts (counterclockwise), just where the path turns north (up). It’s relatively close to the house.
Usually our trailcam is set to take 10 second videos. But we were going to be on vacation in April for almost 3 weeks, and the memory card would either fill up or the batteries might run out. So we reset it for still images while we were gone.
That’s how we ended up with this coyote - cat interaction sequence.
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We record coyotes now and then, but never see them in real time. We record domestic cats, too, and we rarely see them in daylight. Note that this coyote is walking by the camera at 2:39 AM. When we first put up the new camera, the light made the coyotes skittish but they seem to be getting used to it.
Forty-nine seconds later a local cat came by. We see 3 different cats pretty regularly on the cam (unfortunately). My own cats are always indoors. BTW, we’re up to 24 barn cats on the neighborly trapping project. The last couple cats are studiously avoiding the traps.
The cat continues down the path toward the house, but is definitely watching something.
The coyote appears (look for the eyes) and the cat is frozen in position in the middle of the path.
The coyote circles around and the two confront each other. As I was looking at these pictures for the first time on the memory card, I was wondering what would happen next.
This smart cat held its ground. I suspect if it had turned and run, the coyote would have given chase. At least that’s the behavioral outcome I’ve observed with domestic dog and cat interactions.
There’s a ten second gap between each image, so we’ll never know what happened to the coyote. But the cat seemed like it decided that it might be time to call it a night and head home.
This pair came in or near contact again in a subsequent video after we returned. Neither seemed bothered by the other.
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Bonus Video!
We reset the trailcam to record videos. A Wild Tom Turkey was entranced by the camera. The video is close to two minutes long, with 10 second intervals between 10 second recordings (intervals not included in this video). He turns around like he’s on a catwalk so you get a good look at all his glorious feathers.
I’ve seen at least one Wild Turkey hen around the yard and property, hopefully we’ll be seeing chicks in the future.
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The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on follow.
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We’ve had a beautiful couple of days, sunny with temperatures in the 70s to 80s (5 to 15 F above average). Last night local meteorologists reported that we’ve had more thunderstorms this spring than anytime since 1905. Another round is predicted tonight. Thunderstorms are not always severe and bring welcome rain.
Did you see the Flower Moon last night or early this morning? Please share your observations of the natural world!