Video Still Captures

I finally figured out how to take still captures off our videos. Well, no, actually I was already taking them I just didn't know I was because I couldn't find them on the computer. So today I got smart (better late than never) and did an advanced search using today's date since I had just tried to take more snapshots off trail camera videos uploaded today. Aha! There they were. Along with all my other past attempts. Right on my desktop, labelled, appropriately enough, "Still Captures". Duh.

So, here are some still captures of the bobcats that walked past the camera on March 25. Notice the difference in size of the cats in these photos. There's a slender stalk of something that each walked past so I took the snapshot when they were beside it. The first cat is deeper bodied and taller.




A bobcat also marched past the camera on March 11 and March 15. March 11 was the day our 33-year-old mare, Polly, quit eating and became very sick. She recovered, and I am convinced that it was a sudden and unexpected encounter with a bobcat (or cats) that threw her off. She does not see nor hear as well as she used to.

Here is the March 11 cat. At least, the one we captured on video. Although it seems a big horse should not be afraid of a diminutive bobcat, bobcats have, in fact, been known to take down deer. And as far as a horse is concerned, a predator is a predator.


We have not seen bobcats in the trail camera since March 25. And the deer are back wandering past. Here is one who came by on April 28. His beginning antlers for this year are just bumps on the top of his head now. If he comes by regularly, we'll get to see the growth of those antlers over the summer.


Today I put up two more trail cameras in other locations. (They are mini-cameras and were on sale cheap.) It will be fun to see what, if anything, appears in front of them. And it will give me an excuse to take a walking tour, once a week, around our farm to collect the little video cards holding whatever they have seen.

On today's tour to set up the new cameras and pick up the original trail camera's card, I took a few photos of creatures a mite easier to capture on film than bobcats: Mr. Smith on the left; Nightingale on the right. And no, I didn't put any cameras in horse territory. The last time I made that mistake I got a lot of photos of horse noses.