Back in September I placed a trail camera up river to capture the goings on of the locals.
This is my first time using these cameras in this manner. I set it up and left it for several months. I came back twice to swap out the cards. The first time I left the camera for a month. After swapping the card and getting home I found the 32 Gig card had filled up in only 6 days,and than It sat there for 3 more weeks doing nothing! Clearly I needed to cut down on the memory being filled so quickly! The camera turns on when anything walks in front of it. I found a lot of the memory was being filled up by bears searching for salmon at night. I couldn’t tell what was going on but I could see their beady eyes shining back at me.
I’ve always been curious If bears hunted for salmon at night? I’ve never been brave enough to paddle upstream to find out myself. Our eyesight isn’t that good in the dark,maybe we could get away with it during a full moon but generally speaking we are blind as bats out in the dark. Bears have a reflective layer coating the back of their eye. Think of a stainless steel bowl. This reflects the light back out.
The eye is made up of two basic units,rods and cones. Cones are used for colour while rods are used for light intensity. Light coming into the eye hits the front of the rod creating a signal. It than hits the back of the eye and the light is reflected back out to the backside of the rod where it is detected a second time. So by having this extra light capacity the animal can see very well in the dark. Many animals have this ability. Our own pets have this reflective coating.
So I decided to cut out all of the night shots to help reduce the storage problem. I also cut the video length from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. I programmed it to come on at 7 am and turn off at 7 pm.
I found this stretched the memory capacity significantly! Here are a few videos for your entertainment.
This shows a bear searching for salmon. He cannot see but we can that there are zero salmon in that pool. Keep searching buddy!
This video shows a bear that has grabbed a salmon. Once a bear grabs a salmon they usually walk off into the forest right away so another bear won’t see them with the salmon. If another bear does see it with a salmon there is a good chance it would go after that bear. Which usually causes the bear to drop its prize and flee in fright!
Bullying is alive and well in Nature!
This shows a bear walking through the lower pool in search of its breakfast.
You can see a eagles failed attempt at grabbing its own breakfast.
This is the last video I shot. It shows me arriving to grab the camera. Season was done!
Love the action shots and that you had your few seconds of fame there as well!
thank you Annette! I rarely am in front of the camera.
I watched that first clip in puzzlement, so glad you showed the daytime ones too. So nice to see animals without humans impinging on them (even at a distance).
the first one shows what happens when you try to record a black bear at night…..you see just the eyes. I explained a little about how well they see in the dark compared to us.
That was very interesting, thank you, Wayne.
glad you enjoyed it Emma!
Thanks for sharing your videos with us. It’s so great to see the bears just doing their thing. :)
Glad you enjoyed them Lynette! There are still a few out wandering about looking for the last salmon. A friend swam the river the other day and found several hundred Coho swimming about. They are always the last to spawn.
Those daylight shots are extremely clear Wayne – no pollution makes a BIG difference – Well Done 👍😃
Sorry Chris,you were thrown into spam for some reason?
Yes,good eye Chris! The reason why is simple…….we get lots of rain here! When a drop falls it picks up any floating debris. So after many days of raining the atmosphere is literally washed clean of particulate matter making it very clear!
We do not get any pollution here,just forest fire particulate.
The videos are a perfect addition to your already excellent photography!
thank you Doug! Next year it’ll be better now that I have a good location and understand the settings better! No night time videos!
It’s fun watching these beautiful animals in natural settings!
yes,I must of gotten over 1000 videos shot over the two months! Next year I’ll do better,I know what I’m doing now!
Very enlightening, my friend. Thanks so much for sharing.
they would love some of your cookies Noel! Any chance you could whip up several tons?
I am sure they would. Too bad I am too far away.
ok,….I’ll send them to you! A bus full of hungry bears should be arriving in a weeks time!
We have too many of those bad boys roaming the woods of Connecticut. Connecticut folks generally do not like bears. Every now and again one shows up in somebody’s yard and everybody goes crazy.
Oh…………ok Noel,I’ll keep them here but they’ll be disappointed. They were excited about a road trip!
Great set of videos. I really enjoyed the bears and eagle. Funny how short and sweet can be so enjoyable. Great job!
sometimes less is more! I know much more now and am already looking forward to next years salmon run!
Thank you for dropping in Candice!
Nice footage, Wayne!
Fascinating way to watch nature in action! without the risk!
I’ve had three bears in total stopping to check out the trail camera but not one of them destroyed it.
Yes,Its better If I’m not around scaring them away. I’m the only one who goes here.
And the Oscar goes to Wayne, in Little old me! Sunset here is close after 4 pm, and it is hard to see in the night shots, smart to change the settings. It is interesting the explanation about animal eyes, cats are like that I suspect and owls. I liked the short youtube videos, hope you try again next season.
thank you David! I was disappointed that the camera never came on sooner. Might need to adjust the sensitivity as well?
Hang around and we’ll see what happens next fall!
Very nice Wayne – in the second video, that bear is looking all around to see if there are other bears or predators, etc. – little does he/she know that they are on Candid Camera. Nice shot of you as well enjoying your 15 seconds, as opposed to 15 minutes, of fame!
I prefer to stay on this side of the camera.
I imagine at times that entire pool was filled with salmon!
Me too – more mystery that way. And when we saw you last, it was in your birthday suit and as a baby. :) What a disappointment to those bears who return with a grumbling tummy and the salmon are at the other end of the stream!
Nice to see bears and that one eagle in action! I guess the bears won’t be around too much starting about now?
yes,they are all going to bed.
I saw two Trumpeters the other day. The bears and Trumpeters always tag team.
One goes to bed the other arrives to winter.
Enjoyed these Wayne – thanks for sharing! Hey, that young fella in the final video, sprightly one, isn’t he though?!
more likely a unsightly bruin….he said dryly.
Great recordings Wayne! Love the bears and the eagle flying past the camera. I look forward to more footage next year.
thank you Sabine! It is a work in progress.
I’m positive I can get better!
Just found your blog. Looking forward to browsing your archives – so many interesting photos of nature!
welcome to my world Margy and enjoy the view!
I loved Tofino.
As a tree planter on the coast it was a great place to relax.
Do they still surf up island (I think it is Pacific Rim Park but it has been a long time ago)?
you must be far away from the west coast. Tofino is a mecca for CDN surfers! They surf in town (Chestermans and Cox),the park on Wick beach,twin rivers and Hesquit (near Ahoushat)
Great job Wayne, I really enjoyed the videos.
glad you enjoyed them! It was a trial run.