Trail camera chuckles

Weekly checks of the trail cameras in the surrounding woods often makes me giggle.

The motion-triggered cameras captured deer and other wildlife with their natural and curious expressions.

What causes the deer to take interest in the cameras could be a variety of things. The cameras are an unusual bump on the tree with a different smell.

Some cameras also may have emitted an audible click when snapping a photo. A click that would not have been a natural sound.

Some of the night vision on the cameras emit a red light at night that would also create a distraction.

I just love the deer's inquisitive and innocent expressions. It is a chance to get face-to-face with them that I may not necessarily have when viewing them in person.

Meanwhile, a series of photos showed that a raccoon shared the spotlight with the deer feeding on a mineral block.

In addition to the deer and raccoon, a puffed up male turkey strutted his stuff in front of a camera. I speculated it may have been a selfie for a Tinder profile.

 However, not all wildlife selfies are funny. A friend, Sarah Jones of the Franklin area, captured a very big bruin on her trail camera in late March. There have not been any bears appearing on my camera yet. Nonetheless, her Facebook post was a good reminder that the bears are out and about after their long winter's sleep.

My trail cameras did show that the wood ducks had returned to the neighbor's pond. A photo-bombing deer also entered into the shot.

Aside from the game cameras, I was able to get a couple of photos of a brown creeper. Longtime birder and author of "Birds of Venango County," Gary Edwards wrote that the creeper is an uncommon year-round resident for Venango County. He penned that migrants moving north peak in April. That statement may have explained the creeper's recent appearance.

As I impatiently waited for the colors of spring to appear, the trail cameras were a much needed distraction.

Of course the deer weren't the only ones who get up close and personal with the camera. It was a daily struggle to keep Kennedy, the goat from messing with the camera. He adjusted the angles with crooked photos as a results.
​That's just the nature of things 'round here.