Bone Yard and Gut Pile Thread 2016

[Curmudgeon]

I am starting this thread for people to post photos from their gut piles and bone yards. We butchered lambs a week ago so there are still vultures around. By the time the southern zone firearms season opens, the vultures will be gone from this far north. All my good cameras are out looking for deer so I used an ancient Moultrie I60 for the bone yard. It took plenty of photos but started doing something weird: many of the daytime shots are B&W just like an IR photo. I didn't post any of them but in some the sun is shining.

Common Raven - Note the head shape and huge beak.

One of my favorite species of NYS fauna.

Turkey Vultures and a raven. Note the head color of the hatch-year (juvenile) bird on the left.

Red-tailed Hawk

[Paula]

I was wondering when you were going to start posting

[Curmudgeon]

Life had been a little challenging lately. Sorry if I have been scarce. Things should improve, sometime.

[Curmudgeon]

The scraps from the lamb butchering disappeared quickly but the site is still getting occasional visitors. This fisher looks slender, not like the big males we sometimes get. I'm guessing female, or this year's young.

[Chef]

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[92onCaliHollow]

10 minutes ago, chefhunter86 said:

Where are these from? Seeing a bald eagle in the wild is very very high in the bucket list and I sure as heck can't afford to go to Alaska. Was told there are alot in Letchworth but have yet to see any. Did find a nest on the Belmont/Scion border though

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[Chef]

 

Sullivan county ny they are all over... this was at my cousins place.... last weekend I had one fly 70 yards in front of my stand down by the creek bed and another land in the tree by the back porch those wing spans are amazing


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[92onCaliHollow]

4 minutes ago, chefhunter86 said:

Sullivan county ny they are all over... this was at my cousins place.... last weekend I had one fly 70 yards in front of my stand down by the creek bed and another land in the tree by the back porch those wing spans are amazing


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Absolutely amazing.....U guys are very lucky up there. I will have to put that area on the list for a weekend getaway with the wife

[Chef]

Absolutely amazing.....U guys are very lucky up there. I will have to put that area on the list for a weekend getaway with the wife

Where are you located


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[wolc123]

My mother in law put a trail camera on the gut pile from a doe I shot last Tuesday up in the NZ  (DMU 6C) with my ML.   Nothing touched it from then until Sunday when they had to come home.  The doe expired right behind their barn so maybe that is what kept the critters away.   Every last scrap of another doe I killed up there a few years prior, at the same time of year but about a half mile from the cabin, was cleaned up by the following day.  Oddly enough, I did see a lot of eagles around that year.         

[92onCaliHollow]

3 hours ago, chefhunter86 said:

Where are you located


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Western NY

[Paula]

16 hours ago, 92onCaliHollow said:

Western NY

They are in Bergen at Waste Managment 

[stoneam2006]

Absolutely amazing.....U guys are very lucky up there. I will have to put that area on the list for a weekend getaway with the wife

Go fishing at alma pond right down road from you see them there alot all summer

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[stoneam2006]

Pm me if you want details 92

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[Curmudgeon]

Here's a challenge, try to get one of these on your camera. They are much rarer than Bald Eagles. About 5% of the eagles we get at winter camera traps are goldens. They are migrating right now and will peak around mid-November. I saw 5 yesterday at the Franklin Mountain Hawkwatch. It is the best place in NY to see golden eagles and now is the time - http://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=361  or  http://doas.us/research/franklin-mountain-hawkwatch/ .

The folks in the eastern half of the state are more likely to get goldens this time of year because they will not fly over Lake Ontario. It creates a golden eagle shadow. They pass the lake's eastern edge and then head S or SW. They are likely to be passing through western NY on their way north but not expected west of Ithaca or Elmira in the fall. This photo of a spring migrant was taken as I was wrapping up camera trapping at the end of winter. I cleaned up the trap site and dumped a bunch of skeletons on the bone yard - the same place as my photos at the top of the thread. 

[Paula]

Pretty

[Curmudgeon]

New species: grey fox. Note the dark line on the tail and the light feet.

[Curmudgeon]

Some more recent photos of what is checking out the bones. Next week I will move the cameras to some gut piles. I encourage you all to do the same.

 

[wooly]

This cam struggles with light here but it caught a pretty cool burst today.

Made a few adjustments so we'll see what I get next.

Edited November 22, 2016 by wooly

[Curmudgeon]

Very nice Wooly. My gutpile in now under 2 feet of snow.

[Bionic]

Sullivan County has a high concentration of bald eagles here.  The state has little sheds built for eagle watchers to sit inside of to watch the eagles fly over, I always see people utilizing the sheds. Some of the land is restricted too during certain months for breeding.

[OldNewbie]

So I had first one, and then another gut pile disappear, without anything showing up on the camera I had on them. I just tested the camera and made sure it was working OK. It was set to take a short video and then wait 30 seconds then do it again. It works well on deer, night or day. (Has IR for night pics).  I found the stomach/rumen about 10 feet away from the second gut pile like something dragged it there, but nothing on camera. Everything else remotely edible was just gone.

The only thing I can think of is a person came along and turned off the camera, removed the gut pile, and then turned it back on.. But that seems really really unlikely.

Are there any woods critters stealthy enough to defeat a trail cam?  What could account for this?

Edited November 23, 2016 by OldNewbie

[Curmudgeon]

Unless the camera has a problem, only a cold blooded creature - the same temperature as the environment - would fail to trigger it. Could the batteries be run down? 

Edited November 23, 2016 by Curmudgeon
Typo

[Curmudgeon]

Snow on the motion detector?

[wooly]

I moved my gut pile a little closer yesterday (about 3' from cam) and it did a little better.

Yote and fox tracks all around but they knew something was up and stayed behind it.

Some sunshine sure would help with the hawk shot I'm after.

I set my camera to "instant trigger" so as soon as it's done recording one pic it'll take one after the other as soon as it detects motion. I think the most I ever got was 16 pics in a minute using this setting during daylight.

This set recorded 6500+ pics in 1 1/2 days of crows and the hawk.

Screw them deer,lol