First Photos of our Summer Wildlife Survey

Things are heating up with our camera survey, just in time for the summer solstice!

Almost all cameras are up, with only five more to set up this and next weekend. We have some great footage back from four summer and two winter sites.

​Here are the photo highlights so far:

This red-tailed hawk came to one of our winter sites and spent a good amount of time working at the bait. We don't attract birds of prey at our cameras often, so this is pretty cool.

A couple inquisitive coyotes...

...and another coyote inspecting bait. Typically a cautious species, this particular yote approached the bait nine times. We had a lot of photos of coyotes at this site throughout the winter. However, now that the snow has melted we have only caught sight of deer - it seems the coyotes have moved on and the deer have moved in. It will be interesting to see if that changes again throughout the season.

A lot of deer came through this site, almost daily until the weather was consistently above 80 degrees.

And look at this handsome fella posing for us.

We saw a few elk, too. This lone visitor frequented this site many times.

And check out this herd of seven elk!

California ground squirrels aren't found throughout most of Mount Hood NF - they prefer the eastern side of the mountain or the western valleys - but this little guy was hanging out at this log almost daily.

We got some footage of black bear at a few sites, but the best bear photos are of this mama black bear and her white-chested cub of the year!