| One of the measures taken to guard
against fishers has been the addition of a night vision capability to
monitor any activity in or near the nest box. Both of these pictures were
taken during full darkness and revealed nest box visitors that I had never
seen before. The upper picture is of a flying squirrel who became a
regular visitor to the nest box. It sometimes arrived with acorns, which
it buried in the wood chips. On one occasion, it entered with a half eaten
acorn stuck in its mouth and ran around banging it against the walls until
it freed itself. While flying squirrels are common in this area, their
nocturnal life makes sightings very rare.
The lower picture shows a little screech owl peeping into the nest box
through an opening that would normally be covered by the side-camera
compartment. Screech owls usually avoid barred owls and this one was far
too nervous to actually enter the nest box. This nest box is a temporary
replacement for the original OwlCam nest box and will soon be replaced
with a new fisher-resistant nest box. I'm told that
"fisher-proof" would be impossible, but believe that I have a
design that will make it extremely difficult for anything but a bird to
get in.
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