Back in the U.S. -- Wildlife Pix

I'm back in the States for 3 weeks to visit family and celebrate Thanksgiving.

One of the interesting things to check when I get back is our motion-triggered wildlife camera. In addition to catching wandering animals, it also documents the vehicles that come up and down our road.

The vast majority of wildlife photos are of deer. This buck has the beginnings of a nice 6-point rack -- still covered with velvet in this August photo.

This year, we haven't had as many turkey pictures as usual. But this is the first time I've seen deer and turkeys in the same photo.

In September, a nice tall weed grew up right in front of the camera, so it looks like the deer are hiding.

Once the weed was in place, all the night photos were overwhelmed by reflection off the plant. But you can make out a deer shadow in the lower right corner (enlarged below).

And finally, some of our regular visitors know that they're being recorded:

Simon and Associates check our septic aeration system twice a year. The funky color is due to an IR filter that has become stuck in the "off" position as the batteries started to fail. The camera batteries finally died in mid-October.