The Hunter Games

Full archive of all photos available here.

A few years ago, Grandpa got a game camera for Christmas.  After much research we decided upon a camera that would be both robust and feature-packed.  At the time, I thought it would be a cool idea, but knowing how I do things, I figured it would be fun for a season of deer pictures and then maybe it would break, or it would get forgotten, etc.  Not so much!  Grandpa has been vigilant about putting it interesting locations up on "the land" (near Itasca, MN) and regularly changing the memory card and batteries.  I think he uses it to see what kind of animals are in the area to hunt.  Which would never have occurred to me-- you know, using a product for it's intended purpose.

The last weekend we were up there Grandpa pulled me over to the side to show me a few pictures from the camera.  He didn't want everybody to know about it and I soon found out why.  He had a photo of a cougar from just a few weeks earlier!  In looking at the images later, I discovered that the same cat had been captured weeks before that, so it might not be a cat passing through, but an actual resident.  Which could be scary to young children.  Not mine, of course, because when the found out they were more excited than scared.  Now I want to see a moose (fat chance), a wolf (slimmer, yet still husky chance) or a coyote ("plus sized" chance.)

So here are a few of the more interesting creatures captured by the game camera, set up near the salt lick:

Your standard deer shot

A baby deer!

Better yet, a mother and baby deer!

A young buck

An older buck

A bunny

A bunny AND a deer

A cocky crow

Fox

Black Bear

Porcupine

And there he is - the cougar!  The head, ears, and black tipped tail are the biggest clues.

And after further analysis, a cougar from three weeks before -- the same one?

Now it gets strange.  I think this next one is a tribble.  Or less excitingly, a furry mammal.

We think this might be a baby duck, which seems unlikely.  But there is a possibility it's a squirrel running away with a funky tail?  Also, there is something in the mid lower right that looks like it might be a bird too.

Scarier yet, an adolescent boy.  Note the temperature on that photo!

Seems there's a problem with peepers, as well.

Nevermind, it's just Grandpa.

Here's a rare winter snapshot of Grandma and Grandpa!

And finally, this is what happens when Grandpa tells everyone to stand in front of the camera for a few minutes.  No, we didn't trigger it by hand, this was pure patience...