Steven Helmer Publications

It's been cooler the past couple of days, which admittedly feels nice after some scorching temps but does have me a bit worried summer will be over sooner rather than later. I stuck my trail cameras outside again last night, just to see what came to visit. Here are some of the videos:

The weather has been somewhat sketchy the past few weeks. Between that and needing new batteries, I've kept my trail cameras indoors. However, since it wasn't going to rain and I finally had a chance to get some camera-quality batteries, I finally got them outside last night. Here are some of the videos that were captured.

We had some nice weather yesterday and last night, something that looks to be short lived since there's rain in the forecast once again. So, I took advantage of the weather we did have by putting out one of my trail cameras last night. Here are some of the videos, which consist of a lot of rabbits, some opossums and another visit from a fox:

The temps cooled down a bit yesterday but since it wasn't expected to rain, I decided to put one of my trail cameras out to see what it picked up. There wasn't a lot of variety, but I did wind up with quite a few videos. This included an action scene involving an opossum and a stray cat. Don't worry, neither got hurt.

After having some success Monday night and early Tuesday morning, I decided to put the trail cameras out again last night. One tipped over at some point during the night (I think it was bad placement rather than something knocking it over) but I still managed to get some videos. Here is a selection of them:

My mom heard a rumor about a bear being spotted in our neighborhood. While I had (and still have) my doubts about that, my guess is it was a large dog, I decided to dust off my trail cameras and put them out last night. As expected, I didn't get any bears. I did, however, get quite a bit of activity from a bunch of rabbits and a visiting black cat. Here are some of the videos:

I had a moment of panic and needed to review whether or not I could confirm both our cats were still inside the house because the black cat that showed up on our trail camera sure did look a lot like Stormcloud and Echo. The video was around 8 p.m. though, and both cats were present and accounted for at bedtime last night. Plus, I had Stormcloud curled up on my lap this morning, like she usually does. I just hope the cat that did make its trail camera debut had a warm home to go back to like my cats do. In any case, it was a fitting Halloween video considering I had also put my daughter's Jack-o'-lantern out back for the opossums and other critters to munch on, giving me two things associated with the holiday.

A funny story from last night. Our oldest cat, Echo, came charging into the room and jumped up by our bedroom window. He then attempted to swat at something through the screen. At first, I thought maybe he saw one of the critters outside. However, upon investigation, I learned he was instead trying to get a leaf that had landed on the windowsill. Cats can be weird sometimes. In any case, it was a windy night last night but there was still some trail camera activity, once again mostly from opossums. This, however, included an intriguing video (fifth one down) with one of the opossums being chased by something, I think possibly a fox, but I couldn't really tell because it went past too quick and a bit out of focus. It may have also been a dog. Either way, the opossum escaped.

I decided to move my trail camera to a different location last night, hoping to get a better view of the yard and see if I was missing anything at night. I still ended up with the usual suspects appearing on the video, including opossums and rabbits. Here are some of them.  

Our backyard was once again a popular spot for the local wildlife last night and early this morning. The trail camera ended up getting a lot of use, picking up videos of opossums, rabbits, raccoons and even a neighborhood cat. Here is a selection: 

My wife and I had a karaoke night last night (our first one in weeks) and while we were gone, there was a bit of an opossum party happening in the backyard. The trail camera had quite a few videos as a result. Here are some of them.

I didn't have as much variety on the trail camera last night as the night before. No raccoons, at least not any that came into view. However, there was once again plenty of opossum footage and the occasional rabbit appearance. Here's a selection:

Another night of frost but still plenty of activity in the backyard. I wound up with roughly 40 videos on my trail camera last night and early this morning. They were the same culprits, opossums and rabbits with nothing out of the ordinary. Here is a selection of the videos:

I originally wasn't going to put the trail camera out last night because it was windy/rainy, and I really didn't want to go outside because of it. However, I made chili last night and needed room in the fridge for leftovers and since I needed to go to the compost bin anyway, I took the camera with me and set it up. As it turns out, the weather didn't prevent any activity. I had nearly 100 videos, all of opossums. Here are some of the videos. The first happened only a couple minutes after I went back inside so I must have walked right past that opossum. \

There was a lot of activity in the backyard last night, with the opossums making multiple visits. In total, I wound up with 30 videos of them on the trail camera . Here are some of the better ones:

The trail camera didn't get tripped as much last night as it usually does, and I had a few videos I'm confident only happened because of the wind blowing some nearby plants around. However, I still managed to get a few videos, mostly of opossums and squirrels. Here are some of them.

Another busy night in the back yard with opossums tripping the trail camera at various times late last night and early this morning.  Anyway, here are some videos.

I'm starting to get a lot of shine on the trail camera from the dew forming on the grass every night but am still getting some videos that aren't completely flooded out. This includes quite a few more opossum videos from last night and early this morning. Here are some of them:

I had to reposition the trail camera a bit because we're reaching the time of year when the dew on the grass can create quite a bit of glare. I managed to get some decent videos of the backyard visitors from last night and early this morning though. This included quite a few rabbit videos and a neighborhood cat. Here are some of them: 

My daughter had her homecoming dance yesterday and, since that took up pretty much all our day, I reset my trail camera and just left it for about 24 hours. Here are some of the videos that were collected during that time.