What can you discover when you give a group of teens camouflaged motion-triggered trail cameras, and tell them to go hide them in the woods? Quite a lot, as it turns out! This blog is a follow-up to a previous entry titled, Trail Cameras so if you haven’t read that one, and you want the full story, start there.
After spring break we got serious about our study.
Everyone had a notebook that they took with them each week to their observation site. I suggested they record several things each week, including the rainfall (from the rain gauge), if they observed any changes to their site, and most importantly if they used bait or moved their trail camera to a new location.
Each location was described, including GPS coordinates, on a separate page where they recorded as much information as possible.
Below is an example page from Sam’s notebook. He developed a system where each page contained data from both that week and the previous week, to help with data analysis later.
Baiting
After week 4, they had the option to place bait in front of the camera in an attempt to lure whatever animal they were most interested in, to their site. For some, this meant bringing inexpensive cuts of meat and nailing them to a tree.
These odd creations eventually became known as Demetri (the meat tree) and there was much speculation and excitement about what animals Demetri would attract.
Sam was still hoping for birds (though he’d recorded mostly rodents in the first few weeks) so he brought peanut butter and bird seed.
So did they get cougars, bears, and an overflowing abundance of rare and exciting birds? Unfortunately, not. Demetri was mostly consumed by opossums and rats, and instead of birds, Sam got opossums, chipmunks, and mice.
Still, it was a fun experiment and I’d like to give it another try. I’d like to try baiting earlier in the spring, or perhaps even in the winter next time.
Results
For the most part, everyone was excited to go check their cameras first thing each week. They’d switch out the memory cards, and sometimes change sites in an attempt to capture more creatures. Three of the six kids decided to leave their cameras in the same location the entire time, and the other three moved through several different locations. We made some good guesses about where animals might be spotted, and, picked some spots that seemed promising but produced no results. We talked about how a null result in science isn’t always what you’re hoping for, but it’s still good information about what’s going on. In this case, we could identify some low-activity zones in the woods, at least during this part of the spring.
The large predators (cougars and bobcats) were all captured walking on the main trails. The trail camera by the pond captured almost exclusively deer, and not many birds. The camera set up near main camp, much to my surprise, had some of the highest activity and greatest diversity- including cougars, bobcats, foxes, and many other mammals.
To share what they had discovered, each student was tasked with sorting through all their data and making observation counts for each species. We talked quite a bit about how they might do this: if a squirrel runs across the field of view and you get three pictures of it, is that three observations? We agreed that no, that counts as a single observation. If an animal appears and then reappears and it’s been more than five minutes, we decided to count it as a second observation. It’s unfortunate that the wildlife at Bear Creek don’t wear glow-in-the-dark nametags, because it would have been fascinating to know how many different squirrels and different bobcats we saw. But that level of analysis was outside the scope of this study.
Everyone made a chart like the one below, as a way to summarize their data.
Presentations
They put together posters that included their methodology, data results, secondary research on one species of their choosing, and their favorite photos from their trail camera. They were also allowed to use stock photos of their animal, so we could all better learn what they look like.
Over the span of two weeks, and leading up to the final day of BCE for the year, we got to learn about: Bobcats, Grey Squirrels, Cougars, Opossums, Grey Foxes, and Black-Tailed Deer.
As well as summaries of all the data each student had collected, and,
what they might do differently next time. Considering it was the end of the year, many of them had tons of other work, and everyone was starting to itch for the freedom of summer, I was very impressed with the overall quality of work. In the future, however, I would probably end the study earlier and make the data analysis part due before the final presentation.
Towards the end of the last day, some of our extended family showed up, and the kids were eager to give a quick run-through of their presentations for a new audience.
Of course, Hazel helped too. I think she was a little disappointed that no one included a picture of her in their presentation.
Best of Photos
I’ll finish with a few of our favorite captures. Gabriel got his best picture over spring break:
As did Sierra- can you see the two foxes looking at each other?
Fen pointed his camera at the intersection of a stream and a trail- and caught a bobcat jumping the water!
There were lots of opossum photos, but Sam got some good marsupial action on his peanut butter-covered sticks.
Ani got some lovely grey squirrels, with big fluffy tails.
And, Tavi captured many charming deer photos. Partway through the study he decided to switch from still photos to video, which I was skeptical of. But it turned out to be a great idea! He said it was actually easier to sort though, and, you can always extract a still from a video if needed. Next time, I may suggest everyone try that instead.
It’s hard to beat this cougar shot that Ani caught early on!
BCE T-Shirts
One final thing. I spent many, many hours making everyone BCE shirts in my friend’s batik studio. It was fun to finally give them out! If you couldn’t guess, on the front is a Bear (copied from an image of a bear I caught on a trail cam years ago), a Creek (the actual profile of the part of Bear Creek that borders the Bear Creek Wilderness, and Explorers (symbolized by the compass rose.)
The back says BCE but I don’t think I got an image of that. Anyway, here’s me with the BCEs. So grateful for my time teaching and learning with this crew!
Until next fall…