Camera trap

This camera trap is proving quite useful in some aspects and quite obnoxious in others. The trap is taking pictures of everything, which is good except that it has been taking pictures of the very slight movements of branches, leaves, snowflakes, and sometimes nothing. I have fiddled around with different settings and I think tonight I hopefully got it right. When ever I get a good picture of something I will post it on my blog. The next step is getting a good DSLR camera which I will be taking on my transect walks and then be posing the images on this blog as well.

The trap

Ok so yesterday, Saturday the 12th, I got the camera trap I talked about earlier. I was not home so I did not start working with it until today. I opened this huge box, to find the camera trap about 8 inches long along with its case, the box was a 3 feet cube. Anyways I had to get a few batteries for to work, 8 double A's, and apparently this will hold the charge for about half a year. I programed the trap to the settings I wanted which was surprisingly really simple but that is the last of the simple things for the rest of the day.

After that I then started on mounting the trap, this was a pain in the ass. My first round with the little bugger began with a chord thing they sent along with the camera trap. It came with these clips, the fork looking one and the receing, the simple back pack clips that allow you to tighten and loosen grip of the rope. Well they did not sent these attached to the chord so you had to do it yourself, this sounds very easy but it took about 20 minutes for me to put on the two clip things the right way just to realize that I put one on backwards. Some cursing took place when I realized this. Time for a break, had some coffee and lunch and relaxed for a bit.

About an hour later round 2, this time putting on the clip was a whole lot easier so that was nice, but then I tried to attach it to a pole. The pole was about 2 inches thick and the diameter of the ropes tension was about 3 inches. This means that I could get the camera trap around the pole and have it stick for 10 seconds then it would fall, just enough time for me to think that I had got it tight enough for it to stay. After abut 30 minutes of me fiddling with the thing I was back into a terrible mood and left it again.

Round 3, this round I got rid of the whole clip idea thing as it was just pissing me off. So now time for real innovation and abstract ideas that where bound to fail. My First and only idea that I actually tried to do, take a skewer for a shish-kabob insert it through these holes on each end then cut the skewer and fold it into a ring on each side which would allow me to hang the trap. How it actually went down, I found the skewer put it through and then cut it, all simple, then it came time to bend the thing into a ring, this was a bit more difficult but was done. Now it came time for the hanging, of course it had to fail here after spending 20 minutes getting it all setup, so I find some rope and I hung it up. What happened was since the traps case is about 5 pounds it would constantly spin since the skewer was smaller in diameter than the hole. End of round three, this was really pissing me off, I had no idea it would be this difficult to just mantle the trap.

Round 4 I finally gave up with rope and was ready to screw this thing on and be done with it. First problem finding an old 2 by 4, I knew we had some, I just did not know where so I looked around for a bit and could not find any then I asked my dad if he knew were any where he did. This might sound like a good thing but the problem was they were up at my cabin that we built about half a mile in my woods. So I got all my stuff on walked up to the cabin and got the 2 by 4. Second dilemma with the screwing, finding a screw that would fit the hole. This was incredibly aggravating I went through many different boxes and jars full of screws to find one that would fit on this hole. I finally got one and knowing my luck stripped it. Back to finding a screw. I finally got one and got it screwed on. Thank god. Now it was time for setting up the trap in order for it to be at an angle, this is what it said to do in the manual. Back to the first rope I was talking about with the clips. So I redo the clips and get it all setup finally things are going my way. The trap is stable, not moving and perfect it is now 5 I started working on this at about 11:30. I then walk to my stream get the trap all setup make sure it takes some pictures. I then added some bait and it looks pretty good as of the time I left. So now I am leaving it out over night and hopefully something interesting will trip the trap and make it worth all this effort of setting it up.

Goals

So I had my wise mentor meeting yesterday and during this meeting we discussed my transect, which is the one posted earlier, and the camera trap which I will be receiving sometime soon and goals. So here is one of my goals for this project, I want to be able to walk through my woods and be able to identify everything I see from Trees to Arthropods to all of the animal tracks. I will go about completing this goal many different ways, one of which is conducting the survey (pretty obvious) but the others will be spending a lot of time going through different identification books for the trees and plants and then, for identifying the arthropods and maybe some plants,  dichotomous keys for the various unknowns that I know I will find.

The reason why I have set this for my goal is I have always been an outside guy my entire life, I spend a lot of my time in my woods in the summer either running, walking, or biking and whenever I stop for a break or a snack, I usually end up looking at some plant or insect for a while and I always think to myself on the way back, dang I wish I knew what that species was. So this is the perfect opportunity for me to figure out all of these species that I see. I also would like to take pictures of a lot of the different things I see so I will update this blog with a bunch of pictures of plants and animals with their names next to them which will make this project a lot more interesting, for both me and the people reading this blog.

Camera Trap

Today, the 2nd of February, I ordered a camera trap this one is called the 2010 Bushnell Trophy Cam, this thing is cool. It has a range of 50ish feet and will be able to take colored shots and VIDEOS. It has 32 LED lights which will allow it to take pictures at night. Once the trigger is crossed it takes a picture within .30 seconds and can record videos for up to 3 minuets before having to start another. I am very excited to get this piece of equipment as it will help immensely and will hopefully take really neat shots.

Found a Transect

I have decided on a section of my land that I think will be able to get a wide range of different environments through. It will start at the corner of my field and then head across up a hill to the middle of another field, from there it will go north west until I hit a stream, from there the transect will go north east until a dirt road intersects my land. 

The length of the transect is about 3/4's of a mile, or 1305 yards. A transect is a line that cuts through a plot of land it usually incorporates different parts of the area that you are trying to do a survey of, for example in mine I start in a field with no succession, then go farther up my land to a field with differing layers of succession, then to a stream, and then into second growth woods.  Along the transect I will be conducting micro surveys of a cubic meter most likely every 50 to 75 yards. In this cubic meter I will be recording all of the plant species that I find in the area, I also will be conducting small insect traps in either all or half of these spots where I record the plants.

Journal 2: The next 2 weeks

2/5/2010 Saturday: Begin the process of selecting a transect of my land, different sections.

2/6/2010 Sunday: Begin to collect the different materials that I will need in order to begin, things such as a digital camera different other cameras. Try and get camera traps.

2/7/2010 Monday: By now I should have at at least 3 ideas for a transect through my land trying to have a line that goes through the different sections of my land.

2/8/2010 Tuesday: I will try today to have all my identification books in order and to try and have the digital cameras ready to go.

2/9/2010 Wednesday: This is my mentor meeting day and I will propose my ideas for transects through Google earth and hopefully decide on one.

2/10/2010 Thursday: I will begin to plot the transect on a G.P.S. unit and then put this data on Google earth.

2/11/2010 Friday: Main thing today I will do is select how large each stop is on my transect.

2/12/2010 Saturday: Finish plotting the transect if I am not done.

2/13/2010 Sunday: Figure out how to setup a camera trap and find the best area for them.

2/14/2010 Monday: Start making an excel spread sheet for different basic plants of the area.

2/15/2010 Tuesday: Finish making the spread sheet for the plants, begin an excel sheet for birds.

2/16/2010 Wednesday: Wise mentor meeting, talk to Mr. Nelson about the different excel sheets, Finish the excel sheet for the birds begin one for mammals.

2/17/2010 Thursday: Finish the excel for Mammals, review all excel pages and make sure that they are detailed enough and have extra spaces for the species I forget.

2/18/2010 Friday: Get everything setup for the first time walking through the Transect.

2/19/2010 Saturday: Hopefully this will be my first walk through on the transect will collect data and modify things if I need to.

The first entry, Journal #1

My W.I.S.E. Project is a biological survey of select spots on my land. This will consist of me setting up camera traps which are a very neat tool. They are digital cameras which has a laser trigger so when an animal passes it, the camera will snap a picture of it. I will be collecting this data for a few different reasons, one I am very interested in natural history and I am planning on focusing either on Natural History or Environmental studies in college. Secondly I love the out doors and when I am outside I always want to correctly identify all the species of plants, animals and insects and this will be the perfect opportunity to do this.