As soon as I get out of bed, I check the footage to see what critters visited overnight, before I even feed Tina the cat, pour my coffee, or fix my cereal. (Tina has filed a formal complaint with the West Marlborough Cats' Union.)
The trail cam is equipped with side and front motion detectors that trigger the camera to capture both still photos and videos. First I scroll through the photos for a summary, and then I watch the 10-second videos.
There is no routine for the backyard activity, although usually the opossum shows up shortly after sundown, and then the raccoon or raccoons appear at about 3:30 a.m. After that, all is quiet until sunup -- unless the fox shows up, or the skunk, or the barn cat. We've seen deer strolling by only a few times, far off in the background.
We put out leftovers for the critters every night, whether it's bones, turkey skin, stale cereal, or stuff in the pantry or freezer that predates my low-carb diet.
We've started to recognize one raccoon with a truncated tail -- we call him Stubbs. Though he can't climb up the feeder pole and swing on the bird feeder like the other more acrobatic raccoons, he's excellent at picking up Cheerios.
The trail cam did have a bit of a learning curve. Determining the optimal settings and location involved some frustration and, sorry to say, some bad language, but we've managed to figure it out.
I share the most amusing or action-packed footage via social media every day, and so far two friends have enjoyed it so much that they've purchased their own trail cams.
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