Staying home all the time can be boring, why not spend the time collecting data about wildlife?

Location location location

One thing I did not research about my house before purchasing was wildlife traffic. If I had (if such intel existed), I would have discovered that my yard acts as a major thoroughfare for all kinds of wildlife from a variety of birds, to black bears. I started to observe a variety of animals passing through, and eventually optimized my security camera locations to try to catch more of them on video.

I felt inspired, perhaps by the quarantine-induced creativity that seems to be spreading like, well, a virus, to start collecting data so I could answer questions about the wildlife activity in my yard using data.

Methodology

I have three motion-triggered cameras outside my house, one on the front, side and back of the house. I used these cameras to detect various animals in my yard. I counted each animal that passed through the yard once for each unique trip past one or more cameras.

I’m generously calling “Summer” May 27 through October 2, 2020 (when I started to see a major decline in activity).

Limitations:

• Under-counting. I know for a fact that sometimes the cameras failed to detect creatures as large as bears if they were outside of the field of the cameras. I also ignored a lot of bird triggers, and chose to focus on a few specific types of birds. Robins and other miscellaneous birds were plentiful and outside of my scope.
• Data gaps. I’ve shown gap days where no wildlife triggered the cameras. In a few instances, gap days are just because I missed a day or two of counting.

So, what did I find? Read on…

Results

Types of visitors

Cats: I had a LOT of feline visitors this summer. There are 4 different regulars that pass through, including one 3-legged cat I call “Tripod”.

Bears: the real star of the show. A whopping 35 separate visits were captured on cameras. I think I had at least 3 unique visitors.

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Ducklings: a pack of 10 were frequent visitors to the pond across the street and passed through my yard a few times.

Squirrels: cute, plentiful.

Deer: generally a mom and fawn, but had one young buck run through.

Jay bird: I have TONS or birds in my yard but I focused on my favorite, the handsome stellar’s jay.

Porcupine: maybe my favorite. They are so cute and walk so carefully.

Neighbor dog and kids: they pass through freely.

Insects: I caught a few trying to break into the camera. Bees seem to like them.

Season of the bear

I was curious to know what time of year I would see the most bear activity. My hypothesis was that there would be a gradual increase in activity from spring to mid- summer, and then a decrease as bears moved on to hibernate in the fall. For the most part this hypothesis was confirmed, with my peak bear activity happening around the end of July. They could make a comeback if we get some late warm weather, but I doubt it.

In terms of other species, cat activity really peaked in August. Porcupines were popular, then absent for a while. Maybe they don’t like bears.

Happy hour

I was also curious to know if there were any trends around what time of day different animals visited my yard. My hypothesis was that activity would be greatest at night since several of these animals are “shy” / nocturnal. To some extent this was true, but bears proved to be surprisingly bold passing through the yard in total daylight at times.

Cats, bears, and porcupines definitely seem to prefer to travel in the evenings. Squirrels and birds seem to appreciate getting a good night’s sleep. Deer appear to be unpredictable, which sounds about right if you’ve ever encountered one on a roadway.

Qualitative data: bear stories, etc.

• Number two. I know that at least two different bears were frequent visitors. I named the first one “Barry”, and I think he’s the one I now call Left Hip (because of a missing patch of fur). Early in the season, the second bear I saw squatted right in front of my yard camera, dropped a lovely bear pie, and sauntered away. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that it was intentional.
• Close encounter. I came within less than 10 feet of a bear in my own backyard and I have to say, I did not care for it. I had peered around the shed and checked my surroundings. I turned around to replace my camera, and when I stood up and turned around I was eye to eye with a black bear. I was about 100 ft from the house. All I could think of was all of those bear safety posters and podcasts… don’t run. Look big. Talk loudly. I raised my arms over my head and said “yah!” The bear looked at me, surprised, paused for a sec, then turned and scampered off into the bushes. I’m convinced that he was just as surprised to see me, and was also trying to think about his own “what to do if you see a human” training. I now make a point to whistle and clap when I’m going out into my yard, and I don’t turn my back to the bushes when I’m doing yard work.
• Garbage bear. Despite the fact that our neighborhood doesn’t have bear-proof trash cans, we only had one instance of garbage interference by a bear, and his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He knocked my can over but didn’t try too hard to get the lid off, then moved on to the neighbors’ can for a lunch to-go in the woods.
• Blueberries. As predicted, I did catch several bears spending a lot of time in the grove of blueberry bushes in the back of my yard. They made themselves quite comfortable.
• Fireworks. Everyone went NUTS with fireworks this summer, and I caught a poor disoriented porcupine on one of my cameras having a heck of an evening dealing with them. I watching him run around aimlessly startled each time a blast went off. Poor guy.
• Neighbor kids travel freely through my yard. Don’t blame them, I was the same.

Conclusions

Well my methodology is certainly flawed, and it’s difficult to draw any conclusions. I’m comfortable making some general observations:

• I have a healthy wildlife population passing through my yard.
• Bears and porcupines do not like fireworks.
• Bears may or may not shit in the woods. They definitely shit in my yard.
• Bear safety training is useful and not just for tourists.
• Porcupines are adorable, and so are ducklings.