What we saw after borrowing a trail camera from Wellesley Free Library

We live near woods and water, and have threatened to install a trail camera for years. We see plenty of critters during the day, but have wondered what skulks around our Wellesley home at night (not that animals haven’t left a few clues, from scat to footprints to shredded small animals).

So we borrowed a basic camo-covered trail camera from Wellesley Free Library’s Library of Things. It looks to be a $150 model that shoots photos up to 48mp for photos and 4K videos. The first night I put it up, a burly raccoon—that at first glance looked like a bear—ambled around the backyard. The video failed to work for some reason—I actually did use the instruction manual to set up the camera.

The next night, after reformatting the camera, the video worked, too. A bunny starred in the black-and-white nightvision pictures and film, along with a few stealthier creatures we couldn’t quite identify. At night, they all have spooky glowing eyes with this camera.

When sunrise arrived, squirrels showed they weren’t camera-shy as the images switched over to color.

Despite setting the camera at its highest photo and video quality (or at least I think I did), the results weren’t exactly crystal clear, but it was still fun. It did seem to rain most days as well, so we can’t really blame the animals for hunkering down. Maybe we’ll give it another shot over the summer.

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