First, a tiny frog has taken up residence in one of the steel camera casings. He seems right at home and not at all bothered when I open the case and remove the camera to check it once a week.
Several times I've returned to check cameras to find the poles less than upright in the ground (yes, even more cock-eyed than they were when I put them in) and loose in their holes. Once this turned out to be due to a cow that apparently grazed straight over the trap, producing this angle:
Another time the trap had caught the attention of one or more young baboons which turned it into a play platform:
Hyenas have been curious about the traps since day one, so I was not surprised to find that a trap I had placed near a den was partially knocked over. More surprising were the toothmarks in the steel casing and brass padlock. Solid metal doesn't seem like a very inviting chew toy.
Once I noticed that an otherwise intact trap was curiously dirty. This was the work of these patas monkeys:
In the last week I have also caught some less meddlesome but very exciting species, including my first lion:
and an aardvark!
Getting an aardvark photo has always been my unofficial motive for camera trapping in the first place (the official motive being my research). They are very nocturnal and spend a lot of their time underground in the holes they dig to search for termites. They are very difficult to see so I was excited when that photo came up on my screen.
