Despite their name, Fishers do not catch fish. Much larger than their cousins the weasels, Fishers are actually very effective hunters, relying mostly on small to medium sized rodents for their primary prey (however they will hunt other animals as large as porcupines).
Like many other mammalian carnivores, Fishers are primarily active at night; which is why few people ever get the chance to see one. Fortunately, Heather had her Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0 positioned in just the right location one recent snow-covered January night in Norton, Massachusetts to record this beautiful BirdCam Life List photo of one.
Brilliant work indeed, Heather, and many thanks!
For more photos and videos of mammals, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel and Facebook page.
Here’s something you won’t see every day, or any “day” for that matter, because Ringtails such as this one are only active at night.
Small carnivorous mammals that look like a combination of a fox, a cat, and a raccoon, Ringtails sleep most of the day and venture out after dark in search of a wide range of prey from small birds and rodents to grasshoppers and crickets.
Matt of Johnson City, Texas recorded this one using a Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0 during the collection of data for his thesis on the effects of urbanization on mammalian carnivores. We certainly wish him well in his research and hope he lets us know when it’s complete; we’d love to read it.
For more photos and videos of rare animals, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel and Facebook page.
One of the things about humans that have made us so successful in adapting to our surroundings is an often over-looked bit or our anatomy: our opposable thumbs. We’re not alone in having these remarkably useful digits that can be rotated to face the fingers of the same hand in order to allow things to be firmly grasped; primates have them as well.
However despite appearances to the contrary - such as in this BirdCam 2.0 video of a one feasting on the peanuts in Ferddie2009’s birdfeeder, squirrels do not. So why does it so often look as though they do?
Squirrels do have thumbs, just not opposable ones. They can use these thumbs along with their other digits to get a firm hold on items of food and move it around with great dexterity but only, as this video shows, when they use both of their forepaws simultaneously.
If squirrels had true opposable thumbs, they likely wouldn’t just eat one peanut at a time using both hands at once but would probably grab one in each hand; thus doubling their consumption. Quite frankly, I don’t think any of us who feed birds would be in favor of that.
For more fun squirrel photos and videos, please visit the Wingscapes' Youtube channel and Facebook page.
Without a doubt, birds hold pride of place when it comes to the amount of energy, effort, and improvements many of us put into our back yards and gardens; however in England there is a small waddling mammal that comes in a very close second - the hedgehog.
So welcome are they in back gardens that not only are hedgehogs commonly fed throughout Britain, they are also - like birds - frequently provided with housing as well. For example, BirdCam Photo Gallery contributor Roy sent us this BirdCam 2.0 picture of the house he’s provided for his resident garden hedgehog Oggi. (By the way, did we mention that it’s also common practice to name one’s local hedgehogs?)
For more hedgehog photos and videos, please visit the Wingscapes Photo Gallery, Youtube channel and Facebook page.
Back when we first introduced the Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0, we had high hopes that its built-in flash would help users to discover the creatures that visited their properties long after the sun had gone down. Needless to say, when we saw this image of a Mountain Lion that BirdCam 2.0 user “wingsscapes” in Monterey County, California recorded, well… we considered our high hopes to have been realized.
The largest living cats in North America, Mountain Lions - also sometimes called Puma or Cougar - are very reclusive and seldom seen animals. While they once roamed all across the continent, their numbers have been greatly reduced. Their range in North America is now limited to the western part of the continent. Hence this image of one taken in the wild is a precious photograph indeed.
For more great photos, please visit the Wingscapes Photo Gallery, Youtube channel and Facebook page.
As our Wingscapes Facebook page continues to grow, we’ve been seeing more and more photos and videos shared there among our fans using the Audubon Birdcam and BirdCam 2.0. While we’ve enjoyed seeing them all, some of the most astonishing have been those of John van der Loon.
Now to be fair, John has a bit of an advantage when it comes to subject matter; he’s been recording images with his Wingscapes BirdCam at Ras Kiroko in Tanzania. So needless to say, his “backyard wildlife” is a bit more exotic than… well, certainly any of ours on Team Wingscapes at least.
Quite frankly, if we looked out our kitchen window and saw the subject of one of John’s recent BirdCam photos: a three-legged Leopard (or a Leopard with any number of legs for that matter), we’d be more than just a little surprised - just as soon as we’d regained consciousness from the shock, that is.
We may never learn the answer to the age-old question “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". But thanks to this Wingscapes BirdCam 2.0 image recently recorded by Dan in East Haddam, Connecticut, we may be able to determine how many peanuts a chipmunk can pack into its cheeks; because as the photo clearly shows, chipmunks do pack peanuts.
In order to carry food from wherever they find it back to a safe hiding place, a chipmunk’s cheek pouches can expand many times beyond their normal size. So while it looks as though our little chipmunk has met its match with this particular nut, odds are that not long after this photo was taken, a chipmunk with some very full cheeks was scurrying back to its den.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “wily” as meaning “full of wiles: crafty;” which is why the famous animation director Chuck Jones played upon it when selecting a name for his now iconic character Wile E. Coyote. As everyone who has ever seen this character in a cartoon knows, however, Jones’ Coyote’s crafty schemes were rarely successful (most often due to an over-application of TNT).
The schemes of real Coyotes have a much higher success rate (as well as a much less frequent use of high explosives). For example, this one quickly discovered the free-for-the-taking apples that Eli in Washington had set out to attract deer to a carefully positioned BirdCam 2.0.
Quiet, stealthy, successful; had it not been for the BirdCam 2.0 no one would have ever known what had been eating the apples. Any explosions would have immediately given away its activities.
Hankering for more coyotes caught in the middle of their midnight mischief? Check out other coyotes and creature capturings at Wingscapes Photo Gallery and the Coyote Gallery.
While most people have traditionally set-up their BirdCams near feeders and bird baths to record images and videos of the feathered visitors to their backyards, the addition to the Wingscapes product line of the BirdCam 2.0 with its built-in flash has opened wide the door of possibilities for a tremendous variety of other uses day or night, indoors or out.
Opossum
Joe from Orland, California, for example, set up his BirdCam 2.0 inside his family’s barn to capture a few images of the Virginia Opossum living behind a cabinet there. Like many mammals, ‘possums are nocturnal so Joe’s solution was the perfect way to get a good look at this one. Great thinking Joe!
Ever since the BirdCam 2.0 with its built-in flash was introduced, we’ve been receiving a great many more pictures and videos of the various mammals that go bumping around in our backyards during the wee small hours before sunrise.
Take, for example, this image of a Virginia Opossum uploaded to the Wingscapes Photo Gallery by Jim in Blooming Grove, Texas. Thanks to his BirdCam 2.0 having a flash to “light up the night,” Jim was able to capture this vivid, up-close-and-personal image of an animal that while familiar to most of us is seldom seen due to its nocturnal habits.