"This Week At Hilton Pond North" is an on-going series of original photo essays—posted more or less weekly—about natural history happenings here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of upper Ashe County, North Carolina. If you want a free e-mail reminder about each new installment, click here to SUBSCRIBE.

If you like what you're reading and would like to help support the work of Hilton Pond North, please click on the PayPal DONATE button above or visit our FUNDING page for other ways you can contribute.

If you have questions or comments about the current installment, send an e-mail to thisweek@hiltonpond.org

##

Back to previous photo essay; on to next one

APRIL '25 TRAIL CAM

NATURE MOVIE EXTRAVAGANZA

#9: 09-17 April 2025

Break out the popcorn! It's time for our first-ever "Trail Cam Nature Movie Extravaganza," brought to you by Hilton Pond North in upper Ashe County— the "Coolest Corner of North Carolina!"

Our 35+ wooded acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains provide plenty of places for us to deploy trail cameras that automatically capture comings and goings of wildlife around the property. We have a half-dozen of these devices in various habitats, primed to capture still and video images night and day. Every time we remove the SD card from a camera and bring it back to our office for download onto a desktop computer it's just like Christmas: We never know what secrets of nature will be revealed. During the first half of April 2025 captures have been exceptionally good and we wanted to share them with you, so sit back, and enjoy! (You'll need to click on the arrow to start each video, some of which have sound, so set your audio, too.)

Random observations about Blue Ridge Birds and Nature

Although our overnight low on 12 April 2025 was 32.2° at Hilton Pond North, trees atop Phoenix Mountain 3.75 air miles to our southwest were covered with hoarfrost while ours were bare. The difference? We're at about 3,000' while the distant mountain rises to 4,434', where it undoubtedly was several degree below freezing. Hoarfrost forms when water vapor in air comes into contact with a surface that is below freezing; it deposits directly as ice crystals, skipping the liquid phase. It's essentially frozen dew but forms through a process called deposition, not condensation. Delicate ice remained on the far ridge until mid-afternoon when the Sun finally came out. (Incidentally, Phoenix Mountain reportedly was named after the ship that brought the mountain's first settlers, the Ellers, from Germany in the 1800's.)

● Banded in 2025: 21 species, 740 individuals

● All-time totals, March 2024 to present: 67 species, 2,765 individuals

● Notable recaptures/returns for the period (all birds banded and recaptured locally):

Field Sparrow banded 03/23/24; now 3rd-year unknown

American Goldfinch banded 08/25/24; now 3rd-year female

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

By far the most common subjects of our several Hilton Pond North trail cams are White-tailed Deer, and we're not sure if that's because they are exceedingly plentiful or just happen to hang out where cameras are placed. The camera near the underground well that supplies our drinking water captures one to five deer (above) on a near-daily (or nightly) basis as these animals cross the long paved driveway leading to our cabin.

The video above at Sassafras Overlook was taken the day before the one immediately preceding. More grazing, but the reason we include it is because it shows nicely what appear to be gaping wounds on the knee joints of the deer's hind legs. Actually, these are scent glands—of which deer have many: These dark ones (tarsal glands); white tufts near the hind ankles (metatarsal); between the toes/hooves (interdigital); inside a buck's penile sheath (preputial); in front of the eyes (preorbital); inside nostrils (nasal); and between the ears (forehead). Glandular secretions are a major way deer communicate, providing information about gender and perhaps even identifying individuals and revealing dominance hierarchies. Wildlife chemists report interdigital glands alone secrete 46 volatile compounds that apparently evaporate at different rates, perhaps letting one deer know how long ago another deer has passed. Interestingly, interdigital scents are left when a deer of either sex uses its hooves to make a bare patch on the forest floor—a "scrape." Forehead glands likewise deposit a strong scent during rutting season when bucks rub against trees to remove velvet from growing antlers. As a result, we often see damaged saplings due to hormone-induced buck rubs at Hilton Pond North.

Mammals aren't the only creatures to show up on our trail cameras, as indicated by two American Crows in the video above. We have a couple local flocks of three to eight crows that work the day shift and help nocturnal Raccoons with bird feeder spillage. When darkness falls the crows are on a roost somewhere around at Hilton Pond North but it's not uncommon mid-afternoon to see them strolling up the driveway. We're not sure what food they're finding on the asphalt—perhaps remains of insects and other invertebrates that get run over by the occasional passing vehicle.

Although White-tailed Deer are the largest animals to appear regularly in our trail cam videos, smaller mammals also show up time to time at Hilton Pond North. Trouble is, they're so small they sometimes don't trigger the camera soon enough and always seem to be in a bit of a hurry—meaning their movie snippets are pretty short. Above is one of several Virginia Opossums that have been "captured" at the well or elsewhere. These marsupials are often very pale in coloration; nocturnal videos make them look like prehensile-tailed ghosts.

Another reasonably speedy small mammal is the Raccoon, of which we seem to have several family units—mother and kits—at Hilton Pond North. At various times of the year they spend a good bit of nocturnal time digging through fallen seeds under our bird feeders, but we also see them wandering solo around the acreage and ambling up the driveway at the well. One interesting Raccoon attribute that shows well in our video snippet is how long the 'coon's hind legs are compared to its forelimbs. With haunches up, we think the animal looks like it's always running downhill.

Then there are Hilton Pond North's abundant Wild Turkeys. We normally see them in duos and trios but once observed a flock of 14. The video above doesn’t do justice to the size of this big hen, but she likely weighs in at 8-10 pounds. Both sexes may have "beards—a cluster of coarse, hair-like feathers (filaments) that protrude from the chest—but (as above) this structure is much shorter in females. In toms the beard may exceed 12" in length, achievable because the beard is not molted annually like the turkey's other feathers. If they mate, mature Wild Turkey hens should be starting their 12-egg clutches by the end of April, with poults hatching out ~28 days after the last egg is laid. (NOTE: There's a little hen turkey chuckle at the end of the video.)

The video above isn’t actually from a trail cam—we shot it handheld with an iPhone through a window at our cabin at Hilton Pond North—but we wanted to include it in our movie extravaganza. It depicts an adult Sharp-shinned Hawk hanging out at our feeding station, waiting for an unsuspecting songbird to arrive. Although at first glance one might be inclined to say this is a Cooper's Hawk because the tail appears to be rounded, viewed from other angles it's actually squared off—indicating sharpie. A much better ID cue is the shape of the bird's head: In Cooper's the head is flatter while the sharp-shin's is rounder. We like to say Sharp-shinned Hawks have a noticeable forehead that slopes down just before the base of the bill, while Cooper's Hawks have a gradual head slope that continues past the bill base. Separating these two species in the field is notoriously confusing—much easier in the hand where measurements tell the tale.

Even though we really like the previous video of puffed-up tom turkeys, we've saved our favorite for last: An all-too-brief snippet of a Bobcat, an animal that symbolizes for us our new rustic lifestyle in the Blue Ridge Mountains. (In 43 years, we saw only one of these wild felines in the South Carolina Piedmont.) We've yet to hear a Bobcat scream here at Hilton Pond North—a blood-curdling, hair-raising sound we first experienced when one woke us up in the middle of the night while when tent camping in a Minnesota wilderness. At 30 pounds Bobcats are fierce predators capable of taking down a 90- to 130-pound doe White-tailed Deer under the right circumstances, but for the most part they depend on rabbits, small rodents, turkey poults, and newborn fawns. (Interestingly, some wildlife biologists suggest Ashe County's extensive Fraser Fir Christmas tree farms and their complement of small mammals provide ideal hunting grounds for Bobcats.) The nighttime video capture above was at Sassafras Overlook, although we also have a few diurnal still photos of a Bobcat at the well. We doubt we have many of these 'cats on the property; in our mountains adult females need a territory of about 1-2 square miles, while males cover 3-5 square miles.

And "That's all, Folks" for Hilton Pond North's first-ever Trail Cam Nature Movie extravaganza. We hope you enjoyed the videos and look forward to offering more as the seasons unfold. Meanwhile, take an intermission break if you need to before reading further for our miscellaneous "Nature Notes" and a summary of this week's bird banding activities. They're almost like a bonus double feature!

We had seen a Groundhog nibbling on a neighbor's front lawn, but it wasn't until this week we were able to add one to the official "Yard List" at Hilton Pond North. The adult above appeared outside our cabin window and waddled the length of our bird feeding area before disappearing down a steep embankment. We haven't seen it since, so it may have been wandering through; there are certainly plenty of hillsides to choose from if it wants to make a burrow. Also called Woodchucks or “whistle‑pigs” for the sharp warning call they emit, these rodents are the largest members of the Squirrel Family (Sciuridae) in most of North America. Their true hibernation is remarkable, with heart rates dropping from around 80 beats per minute to as low as 5, and body temperature plunging below 40 °F for months before rising to a "normal" 99°. (P.S. Woodchucks don't chuck wood. Soil maybe, and leafy plants they eat, but not wood.)