I have been trying to catch rodents in the act of foraging for seeds or seedlings. Usually, I manage to position my trail cameras behind branches and get hundreds of videos of wind waving them. Or the batteries shift out of place and I get no videos at all (so much for being “rugged”). Or water gets through the weatherproof casing and the screen stops working (see comment on ruggedness…).
But my latest efforts to study seed removal by granivores (failed due to cloudbursts, but) yielded an infrared video of a big old packrat appearing to try getting into my experimental exclosures at the seeds inside – and seeming to fail! Score one for my methods?
Biologist. Explorer. Storyteller. 