We're a watering hole?

[drussell41]

We installed a new camera security system.   Little did we know all the animal life around here.    We have a swimming pool that may serve as a watering hole. 

Cats from our colony (of course), but also racoon, opossum, dogs, a couple of things that look like mice/rats/hamsters, and something that flies from the roof to the ground and can run as fast as it flies.   We cannot figure out what that last thing is.   Unfortunately, that area doesn't have a light, so it's in black and white.   It only shows as solid white by the camera system during the night.  We're baffled.   At one point, I thought I saw wing flap, but I didn't think small owls or bats could run as fast as they fly.   Anyone have ideas?

Husband keeps saying, "Ghosts."  Me:  "STFU".    Okay, more like "Stop."

[Wallfire]

We installed a new camera security system.   Little did we know all the animal life around here.    We have a swimming pool that may serve as a watering hole. 

Cats from our colony (of course), but also racoon, opossum, dogs, a couple of things that look like mice/rats/hamsters, and something that flies from the roof to the ground and can run as fast as it flies.   We cannot figure out what that last thing is.   Unfortunately, that area doesn't have a light, so it's in black and white.   It only shows as solid white by the camera system during the night.  We're baffled.   At one point, I thought I saw wing flap, but I didn't think small owls or bats could run as fast as they fly.   Anyone have ideas?

Husband keeps saying, "Ghosts."  Me:  "STFU".    Okay, more like "Stop."

Might be a flying squirrel

[drussell41]

We installed a new camera security system.   Little did we know all the animal life around here.    We have a swimming pool that may serve as a watering hole. 

Cats from our colony (of course), but also racoon, opossum, dogs, a couple of things that look like mice/rats/hamsters, and something that flies from the roof to the ground and can run as fast as it flies.   We cannot figure out what that last thing is.   Unfortunately, that area doesn't have a light, so it's in black and white.   It only shows as solid white by the camera system during the night.  We're baffled.   At one point, I thought I saw wing flap, but I didn't think small owls or bats could run as fast as they fly.   Anyone have ideas?

Husband keeps saying, "Ghosts."  Me:  "STFU".    Okay, more like "Stop."

Might be a flying squirrel

Woah.   I googled it, and we do have flying squirrels here.  Who knew?!   Thanks!

[Mystic Wanderer]

While you're at it, look up New Jersey Devil.    




















(Only half kidding.)

[F2d5thCav]

That's cool.

I ought to set up a camera.  I know there are critters in the yard at night from the way the cat behaves when she goes out in the morning.  Lots of interesting scents out there for her.

Cheers

[drussell41]

While you're at it, look up New Jersey Devil.    




















(Only half kidding.)

Thankfully, I think it was too small for that.

[Ninurta]

If it's in the night, things show up differently colored under IR from the camera. Some stuff disappears altogether. I recall having an IR camera, and this unsuspecting young lady was wearing a black t-shirt... and the camera turned the t-shirt into a "ghost shirt" you could see all the way through.

It was very exciting.

Anyhow, a normally gray flying squirrel may show up as solid white, or any number of other flying critters might, depending on how their surface reflects or refracts the IR illumination from the camera.

I didn't know we had flying squirrels around here either until one night when i was camped in an old cabin, and sliding into my sleeping bag I sat my hand squarely down on one. Since it was pitch black dark, I didn't know what it was, and thought it was a mouse until I got a light on it...

... that was very exciting, too.

The critters that show up in the night are often unexpected. My sister has cameras all around her house, and caught a bear ambling down her driveway and checking out the 4-wheelers one night. I have a series of cameras here, but have not yet been here long enough to catch anything on them. Since the yard is hurricane fenced in, I don't expect to see a bear in it, but on the day I moved in, a momma bear and two cubs crossed the creek and came up the mountain right past the corner of the fence, ambling on into the surrounding woods.

.

[drussell41]

If it's in the night, things show up differently colored under IR from the camera. Some stuff disappears altogether. I recall having an IR camera, and this unsuspecting young lady was wearing a black t-shirt... and the camera turned the t-shirt into a "ghost shirt" you could see all the way through.

It was very exciting.

Anyhow, a normally gray flying squirrel may show up as solid white, or any number of other flying critters might, depending on how their surface reflects or refracts the IR illumination from the camera.

I didn't know we had flying squirrels around here either until one night when i was camped in an old cabin, and sliding into my sleeping bag I sat my hand squarely down on one. Since it was pitch black dark, I didn't know what it was, and thought it was a mouse until I got a light on it...

... that was very exciting, too.

The critters that show up in the night are often unexpected. My sister has cameras all around her house, and caught a bear ambling down her driveway and checking out the 4-wheelers one night. I have a series of cameras here, but have not yet been here long enough to catch anything on them. Since the yard is hurricane fenced in, I don't expect to see a bear in it, but on the day I moved in, a momma bear and two cubs crossed the creek and came up the mountain right past the corner of the fence, ambling on into the surrounding woods.

.

 Yeah, I'd be pretty shocked to see a bear.

There's a chance some night we'll see a coyote.   We know they're here.

[ChiefD]

It sounds like you have a little zoo going there, LOL!   I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flying squirrel. I live in town, and our town has its own wild turkey. Our town facebook page named him Jake, and yes, he has his own facebook page now too! One morning, I was sitting in my living room looking out the sliding glass door to my patio, and watched as a full size adult male deer casually ambled down the middle of the street like he was doing a morning stroll. I didn’t get to my phone in time to take a pic, but the guy across the street did. Otherwise, just birds, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and the occasional possum or fox.

[Ninurta]

 Yeah, I'd be pretty shocked to see a bear.

There's a chance some night we'll see a coyote.   We know they're here.

My wife used to go out and walk a mile every morning. One morning she was walking as usual, heard a noise, and two bears came out of the bushes into the road behind her. She stared at them, they stared at her, but she knew she had to get past them to get back home. So, she skirted them on the far side of the road from them, and just walked past until she got home. The bears must have been as shocked as she was - she said they never moved, just watched her walk past.

I was leaving my sister's house one day and walking home, and saw "her" bear at the end of her driveway. All I saw was it's ass end disappearing into the brush, getting the hell away from me. I used to smell them on the hill above my house in the brush, but I never bothered them, and they never bothered me, so we peacefully coexisted. I only had them get into my trash once, which I considered a lesson learned and thereafter just waited until trash day morning to set it out.

We had 3 bears on that mountain, and we called them "momma bear, papa bear, and baby bear". Baby bear wasn't really a baby, she was about half grown and growing. Poppa bear was a monster. He came to visit my brother in law one evening when he was sitting on the porch. When he started yelling for my sister to get his rifle and bring it, poppa bear skyed away, scared off. Poppa bear probably went about 5 or 600 pounds. Momma bear probably ran 250 to 300.

baby bear made the rounds, and used to regularly raid the trash cans at the place I worked on top of the mountain. I've got a video of her somewhere getting out of the dumpster and getting scarce when folks started coming in for work one Sunday morning. It was always Saturday night or early Sunday morning when she made her raids up there. One of the maintenance guys saw her up on top of a picnic table we had out back one Saturday night/ Sunday morning about 2 am when he stepped out to smoke. He said she was just laying there, lounging around on the top of the picnic table.

The ones that passed the corner of my yard here on their way to the woods were seen by 3 of the guys who helped me move as they were leaving to go home. They yelled up to the house to let us know that bears were coming our way, but the yelling scared the bejesus out of the bears, and they took off at a dead run into the woods. I could track their progress by the crows they upset on their way up the mountain.

Now, one of the guys who worked for me on top of the mountain at my old place, that was a REAL man! He was sending his kids off to the bus stop one day, and saw a bear up in the bed of his truck. He had, just the day before, put a brand new bed liner in the truck, and the bear was scratching it up. that pissed him off something fierce, and he just snapped off a 5 foot switch and ran up to the bear ans started switching it, whereupon the bear decided that was as good a time as any to get the hell out of there, since there were obviously crazy folk about. he chase along behind it still switching the bear, and switched it all the way off his property. His kids, watching all this, were laughing their asses off.

I reckon you just have to learn how to handle the critters around you...

.

[ABNARTY]

It's a dang gum Chupacabra !!!

[drussell41]

[quote pid='52938' dateline='1599172251']

I reckon you just have to learn how to handle the critters around you...

.
[/quote]

True. 

Great bear stories!!

[drussell41]

It's a dang gum Chupacabra !!!

Ah, geez.  No.    LOL!