Welcome to the Camera Trap Chronicles

Camera Trap Chronicles is where I’ll be sharing observations from an ongoing independent camera-trap project focused primarily on scavenger behavior at a long-established, human-created carrion site in southeastern Massachusetts.

Or, in less academic terms: I put cameras near dead things and wait to see who shows up.

The site receives road-killed wildlife over time, creating a concentrated and unusually persistent food resource for local scavengers. That makes it an interesting place to watch the community that forms around carrion: coyotes, foxes, raccoons, vultures, invertebrates, and whatever else decides that today's menu looks promising.

My cameras have documented animals feeding, investigating, scent-marking, scent-rolling, competing, avoiding one another, returning repeatedly, and generally behaving in ways that are much more interesting than a single still photograph can capture.

A very important caveat

This project began as an exploratory pilot, not as a tightly controlled scientific experiment.

Camera locations, deployment periods, carcass availability, and other conditions have not been standardized across every observation. I do not control when or where carcasses are deposited, and the site is subject to outside disturbance from people, domestic dogs, weather, and other factors.

Because of that, the footage presented here should be treated as natural-history observations and hypothesis-generating field notes, not evidence of broad population trends or definitive seasonal patterns.

In other words:

“I repeatedly observed this behavior here” is fair.

“This proves all coyotes everywhere do this in June” is very much not.

The long-term goal is to use what I learn from this exploratory phase to better understand the site, refine the questions worth asking, and identify what a more standardized project would actually need.

What you'll find here

Individual Camera Trap Chronicles may focus on a single behavior, an interesting species interaction, changes around a carcass over time, or simply a piece of footage that made me stop scrolling and ask:

...why the hell is it doing that?

Whenever possible, I'll separate what the footage directly shows from interpretation, established behavioral research, and my own speculation.

There may also occasionally be names, lore, and accusations of infidelity involving deceased deer.

Those portions should not be mistaken for peer review.

Content warning

This project deals directly with carrion ecology.

Posts may contain trail-camera footage or still images showing dead animals, decomposition, scavenging, exposed tissue, insects, and other completely normal but potentially graphic parts of the decomposition process.

Nature is not particularly concerned with being Instagram-friendly.

And frankly, that is part of why I find it interesting.