The most obvious wildlife at the flow is the deer. Fawns are cute but it does become scary driving down Goodnow Flow Road at dusk in June when families are out grazing on the shoulders and variously ambling and jumping out into the roadway. There are video posts of moose on the GFA Facebook page but I haven’t seen any around my location close by the noticeboard – I think they are coming out of the Essex chain area and are more common towards the main dam (east end of the lake).
Most of the images and video of wildlife around my cabin at the Goodnow Flow are from IP cameras. I took some shots of birds out on the water using a regular camera while visiting. I’ve used game-cams and they give a better picture but mainly I’ve used them to figure where to put IP cameras. I can get more images from the IP cameras, and I lent out the game cams to David Dorey who received some threats while running in a club election. Click on the images and links for additional videos.
Last winter there was a fox hanging out at and under my cabin. That seemed to become a couple in late winter (see the front page to the site) but they moved on. I added a camera under the cabin at the start of the 2019 season. This year the foxes just pass by.
This winter I’ve also seen a Bobcat (wildcat to my Brit relatives). Both the foxes and the Bobcat have checked out the underside of the cabin – likely finding the scent of food since the camera also spots mice chipmunks and red squirrels.
Folks agree that the visiting Bobcat is not someone’s lost house cat, but its harder to judge that it’s a coyote that’s on the game cams, and not a wandering German Shepard, though the tail marking seem right for a coyote and the head in some shots looks distinct.
I don’t have pics, but last year the Monarch butterflies were noticeable. Most of the butterflies I see are black & yellowish and have a tendency to congregate. I think they are Canadian Tiger Swallowtails
I’ve been visited several times in the bay by a couple of types of heron. Twice, watching from my cabin, I’ve seen what I think are ospreys bombing the water but haven’t had a camera handy. Same for bald eagles flying over. Last year seemed to be the year of the Loon, I managed a few good pictures and one pair successfully nested in the west end of the lake.
Everyone loves the Loons, last year one pair nested and the lake level was dropped a bit so that the nest didn’t get swamped, that was further west than my Lot. The geese aren’t so welcome by some (their dogs got parasites feasting on goose poop).
Otters sometimes stop by but they are a pain to photograph ‘cos they are so low in the water and, like the Loons, they will take a long dive and pop up somewhere unexpected.
I try to carry an Olympus point and shoot camera with 10x optical zoom for whatever happens – These are now the equivalent of buggy whips but that zoom function is a step up from any phone camera plus I just upgraded my model (the first took a brief bath in the flow) to one that will burst shoot 7 frames. Most of the images and video are from IP cameras, I’ll try and do some blog posts about the IP cameras I’m using, a mixture of older Foscams and 4-megapixel ReoLink cameras.