Bad Aim

 I moved the camera traps from the south side of the site to the north side.  Apparently, I'm not so good at aiming though.  Mostly I got a lot of pictures of the top of tortoise shells.  There was just this one that included a face.  I tried to fix the camera placement.  Time will tell whether or not it worked.

We are officially booked to speak for the Space Coast Science Education Alliance.   They made this great flyer for the event.  Unfortunately, due to some scheduling conflicts, some of our supporters will be at state science fair, and Ryan will be presenting at NSTA.  Still, it should be a great opportunity to share our project with more people.
I think we have the google form and photo drive working now which will mean that anyone will be able to look at the pictures from the 114 acres and help us to analyze the data from them.  I'm going to have a couple of people test it for me and then share the link here when it is ready to go live.  

Camera Trap Fun

 I was doing a quick sort through the photos from the camera traps seeing what was new.  A nine banded armadillo.

 Birds.  I'm sure Ryan could tell me what kind.

So many bobcat pictures.  One at night.  

In the afternoon.

 Checking out one of the burrows.

 A nice looking buck.

Thankfully there were several of this little guy.  I wasn't sure what it was until I saw the tail.
My AP students spent some time looking at photos today and using a Google Form to identify animals and behaviors.  They really seemed to enjoy it!  They would narrate as they looked through the folders and point out interesting behaviors.  I had them do a camera trap ID activity earlier this year, and they still seem to get a kick out of it.  Because I set up a form ahead of time, all of their data was collected in real time and I could pull up a spreadsheet for data analysis.  

A Hole in the Fence

I was out on the 114 acres this weekend downloading photos and moving the cameras.  I have thousands of photos to sort through now, but I wanted to share a few from camera 5.  It was set up in the scrub along a whole in the fence.  There seem to be a lot of animals using it as a way to get in and out of the property.  This is my favorite photo so far -- bobcat!

 There were so many deer of all shapes and sizes.

Then this adorable family of raccoons.  I've got a google forms document worked up and a shareable link to the photo drives for the students to try out.  Hopefully they will be able to look at the photos and begin to pull some data from them.  More photos to come soon.  

A Few More Photos

 Ryan has been out tagging Gopher Tortoise Burrows.

We've also been catching some different animals in the burrows.  We think that this is an Eastern Spotted Skunk

This little guy is an Armadillo.  We started this project wondering whether they were living in abandoned burrows.  I guess they do.  

Burrow Occupancy

After one full week of having the cameras placed in the field, I went out this morning to download the photos.

 There were birds

 And more birds.

And even mice.

But the thing we found in most of the burrows.... tortoises.  

 We chose what we thought were abandoned burrows, hoping to see who else had moved in.

 

But instead, we found the gopher tortoises burrowing away

 In pairs.

 At night.

And especially in the bright sunny day.  333 photos had something going on.  Those are all tagged now and ready to upload.  So exciting to see so much activity in such a short period of time!

Camera Trap Photos

We had a camera out on the property to get an idea of who is on the property. 

  Look at who is visiting the property.  

 Here is a nighttime shot.  These are just a few of the shots we captured.

Deployment of Camera Traps

Saturday morning we were lucky enough to go out to the sight to set up our cameras.  

 We scouted for burrows and worked to set up our cameras to see what is living in them.

 Ryan took GPS readings on each camera so that we can make sure we find them later.  Some of the burrows were quite secluded.

Right now we are focusing on abandoned burrows.  Part of the role of Gopher Tortoises as keystone species is setting up burrows that are inhabited by lots of other animals. Hopefully we will see how is coming in and out of these burrows now that the Gopher Tortoise has moved on.