It sure is nice to see the Great Outdoors in a cycle of rebirth, and there is no better time to witness this transformation than during early summer.
Spring is often referred to as the time of rebirth and rejuvenation in the animal world, but this isn’t entirely true. The actual fruits of labour tend to come to fruition during late June – the early summer period.
The Wild Turkey, for example, is one of those creatures with a birthing period which falls around this time of year. Sure, the breading is carried during the spring, but following a 28-days gestation period the poults are born (all within 24 hours) and join the hen on a great new adventure.
This year, I was very fortunate to capture some images of new-born poults on my property no more than a couple of days following birth.
In this trail-cam image the newborn poults are barely recognizable scattered around the ground below her feet. If you zoom-in, you get a better appreciation of their size and appearance.
I find the newborn poults look like small woodcocks, actually, with a dull light brown-grey mottled appearance.
Wild turkeys are not the only animals having babies at this time of year. Although I am not a huge fan of raccoons, I did capture these night-time trailcam images of mom coon and her two young ones.
The below images of a doe and fawn in my back field were taken about 4 years ago, and remain some of the nicest wildlife pics I have taken personally. Unless you’re a full-time wildlife photog who spends days on end in the field, capturing images of a nursing fawn is a rarity indeed.
Although I have not captured any images this spring/summer of does’ and newborn fawns, I have seen a couple. One on my way to Cornwall a couple of weeks back, and the other morning I spotted a doe feeding on a nearby property, and as I watched her through the binoculars; her posture and mannerisms seem to indicate she may have a fawn hidden nearby( I will be watching her more closely over the next few days)
Without going into another long drawn sermon on the merits of trail cameras, I honestly don’t think I could live without them! Keep an eye on the Outdoors Guy Blog as the summer progresses; I will be testing out some new Bushnell Trail cameras. One revolutionary new model has all the features of the top surveillance cams, but retails for just over $100 from what I understand.
Thanks for stopping-by and have fun in the Great Outdoors this summer!
Oh yeah, and please feel free to send-in your early summer wildlife photos!
Outdoorsguy
Here’s one of Rick’s pics of a nice Tom turkey strutting his stuff for a nearby hen:
Here’s another one of Rick’s recent pics of some nice ‘twin bucks’. (This image is an exlusive for the Outdoors Guy Blog)
Here’s the photo(& story) of Bobcat Rick saw in NB back in 2008:
Jeff this is the only Bobcat I have been lucky enough to get on film. The picture was taken on July 27 2008 in New Brunswick. I have never seen a Lynx.
Here’s an incredible Lynx image( & caption) sent in by GPG….man, some guys have all the luck!! (Is it me or does that photo look like a classic painting??)
“Here’s a picture of the Lynx which was watching us from shore. We were on our way back from the evening hunt so it was taken at dusk. ”
Here’s another Bobcat pic sent in by Rick. This one was taken in Kemptville-area December, 2009. If I hadn’t known it was a Bobcat, I’d have said it was a Lynx…goes to show how similar they are.
