As a land trust, one of our responsibilities is to monitor and document the various species on the Marsh’s Falls property. We recently started using motion-sensor wildlife cameras, an amazing tool to discover what animals are present, what they do, and where they go. This past winter we used two wildlife cameras for the first time and got great results. Finding the right locations for the cameras took some time, but eventually we discovered a few good places and set the cameras to take 10-second video clips.

From December 2023 to April 2024, the cameras recorded over 3,000 video clips!  Unfortunately, many clips were triggered by wind moving branches in front of the sensors. But we documented twelve species of mammals and ten species of birds. We also filmed a Painted Turtle basking on a log in early spring while there was still ice on the pond.

We’ve shared the best of these results in a nine-minute video on our YouTube channel. 

Check it out here!

Some species are easy to document, such as surveying the plant community which just requires time and expertise to walk the property and document the species.  Other creatures, like butterflies and dragonflies, require observers to conduct surveys at specific times of the year when these species are flying.  Birds can be seen and heard year-round, but surveys are usually conducted during the late spring when male birds are singing to establish their breeding territory.  The Foundation has been conducting these surveys for several years. 

Another technique used is observing tracks.  Some species, like White-tailed Deer or Moose, can be hard to find but their tracks are unmistakable.  Other animals, like fox, fisher, otter and martens are very difficult to detect. But now, thanks to our wildlife cameras, we and you can observe these species in the wild!