Raven Report

I set up the trail camera at pretty much waterline, facing out into the inlet. She's swelling fast now and I was hoping for shots of waterbirds. When I picked out the SD card after 48 hours and plugged it into my computer, it came up with over 1600 images.

Of course. The waves. That meleluca tree swaying in the wind, constantly setting off the motion sensor. I wondered whether or not to download the whole lot. Surely a waste - of what? - time? of digital space? Anyway, I did download the lot and what I have now is a stop motion film of the inlet over 48 hours, with the water photographed every moment it moved, each surge and return, every flicker of that tree in the wind. The resolution and clarity of the photos is ... pretty good.

It's the most amazing, utterly beautiful sequence of images I've ever seen and they were taken entirely by accident. I mean, I'd set up the camera looking for critters to move into the frame and here is the whole inlet, speaking to me.

 

Speaking of critters, the first image of an animal I found was of this raven. Within a few hours of setting up the camera, she'd come in to have a look.

Yesterday I noticed a lot of raven activity around that spot, as I watched from my writing desk. They were flying down to the beach and then taking off with lots of calls to each other. I'd forgotten all about the camera. I was getting ready for teaching semester two at uni and thinking about writing and history. So I kinda nodded away my raven observation and went back to my computer. The hound looked interested. As it turns out, when I retrieved the SD card today, one raven had found the camera and was calling others in to investigate. This camera was an event for the ravens. How bloody cool is that?