fox behind our home caught on game camera
The large white butt was the dead giveaway. No doubt, an elk had been visiting our septic holding field. While deer and elk can look somewhat like from a distance, the size and the large, white furry butt help identify definitively it’s an elk. We decided a dog-like creature must be a coyote, with the grayish fur and the bushy tail. The fox was the easiest as he had been caught during the first hours of sunlight.
My father-in-law has a penchant for giving my husband and I rather unique gifts. He sent us a hotel package at the historic Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. For Christmas one year, he sent us a string of lights with President Obama’s face lit up on the cylinder-shaped lights. Another year, we got a receipt for a drone. We are always surprised by the ingenuity he comes up with. This year, for my husband’s birthday, he outdid himself.
The first clue that something unexpected was arriving was the padded envelope from Amazon with SD card inside. At first, we thought Amazon must have made a mistake, or worse yet, someone had stolen our credit card and bought something from Amazon that accidentally still shipped to us. After a call to Amazon, they assured we were the correct recipients and that it was part of a gift. The second part of the gift would be arriving soon.
The eagerly anticipated second part of the gift turned out to be a game camera that catches wildlife on camera day and night. We’ve long known that our property serves as a pathway for all kinds of wildlife traipsing down to the creek behind us, as we’ve seen a multitude of tracks large and small. Nowhere are there more tracks than on our septic holding field behind our house. Coincidentally, the septic field is probably the most moist (for obvious reasons) and most abundant with vegetation — grasses, wildflowers, seedlings.
Bryon set up the game camera right at the septic field, and the camera takes pictures throughout the day and night. He then surfs the images to look for things of interest, of which we’ve seen many. We no know that the elk, deer, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and moose are regular visitors.
I don’t know whether to be excited or alarmed by this. One of the things that most excites me about living in the woods is the chance to regularly see wildlife. However, it’s also a bit concerning, especially when you have dogs to know these large animals are out there lurking the dark, as I take the dogs out for their pre-bedtime bathroom breaks. Still, it’s kind of cool to have living proof that yes, we are living in our very own Wild Kingdom.
