We deployed our cameras for the NC Candid Critter Project exactly three weeks ago! Check this post out if you don’t know about this awesome Citizen Science program, where I describe in more detail how it works and our roles as volunteers in the program. Today we hiked in to gather our cameras and we got my boyfriends camera first.
While walking the ridge we heard a turkey shock call three times in about 15 minutes. If you didn’t know, turkeys will gobble or shock call more often in the spring when they feel aggressive or excited. Things that can cause a turkey to shock call include crows, owls, coyotes, and, at the heat of breeding, car sounds. The turkey we heard seemed to be responding to a crow calling near it. It was thrilling! We are less than a month away from turkey season and hearing a turkey gobble just made season seem that much closer.
We got his camera, saw some new game sign, and started heading to my deployment site. We walked out of the woods and into a field we blind hunted turkey in last year. In the field were two tom turkeys. We spooked one and watched as one moved up a hillside and disappeared back into the woods. I forgot how big turkeys are and getting the opportunity to watch two in just a few minutes was awesome!
We got to my deployment site and my camera had 375 pictures! I was astonished by the number and I couldn’t wait to see what was on the camera. We didn’t bring the card reader for our phones so we had to wait until we got home to see what we had captured.
My camera mainly captured squirrels, a few deer, and a bobcat! It also snowed mid-week last week, which showed up in the pictures!
I’m planning on starting my second deployment this week once again in Pisgah National Forest but in a whole different county! Stay tuned to see what deployment 2 brings and check out some of the pictures from deployment 1 below in the slide show.
arch-HER Outlook 
Cool groovy.
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