Very interesting thoughts (as always) John. Well, I’ll go take a picture in a few minutes but the cam is mounted on a board attached to an Oak Tree so…not a balcony but…there are a couple feral cats around here but I’ve never seen them camping-out on limbs or branches although they DO go up and down my driveway at night. Next…my neighbor told me (three years ago) that he heard scratching on his bird feeder one night and briefly saw what he thought was a flying squirrel. Now his setup is probably 300 feet away from my tree and I’ve not had any indications of any at my feeders here ever. If I’ve got some nesting in this old Oak, it would be the closest I’ve ever come to a flying squirrel since some DNR program manager brought a couple into my 8th grade biology class back in 1974! Wouldn’t you know I’ve just had a pair of Chickadees and a pair of Bluebirds move into nest-boxes just yesterday and I hear Flying Squirrels sometimes predate nests. It seems there is always something to be concerned about! Pic of mounted camera to follow.
________________________________
From: <ajf-jlf...> <ajf-jlf...>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2026 12:28:36 PM
To: 'Fred Kaluza' <fredkaluza...>
Subject: RE: [birders] Probably Non-Bird
Fred,
Of course, I have no knowledge of the placement of your cam, but from its perspective on the gate below, it would appear that it may be in or near a second floor window, or somewhere on a balcony above the line of sight over the railing. That would make it possible that an animal walked along that railing, flicking its tail into the cam’s line of sight briefly at timeline 0 and again at 0:11.
For the tail to appear the size it does, it would have had to be quite close to the cam.
All that said, the configuration of the tail and especially its rounded tip speaks to me most definitely of a domesticated cat. If there is a cat in your neighborhood and if there is a railing, other walkway, or even a tree limb or some type of raised platform or pylon along which a cat could access, I’d assume that a flick of its tail in range of the cam’s sensor is what has been activating the cam.
About the only other nocturnal prowler I can imagine triggering the cam would be a flying squirrel, but in your case, I believe the tail to be too long, the tip to be too rounded, and its hairiness too compact for that wild critter.
Any chance I’m reading the situation and likely culprit correctly?
John
From: Fred Kaluza <fredkaluza...>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2026 9:05 AM
To: 'Birders' <birders...>
Subject: [birders] Probably Non-Bird
I have a trail cam up a tree that’s getting triggered randomly for the last couple months. Last night at about 11:30 PM, the video at the link below was captured. Not much to go on but guesses are welcome.
--
Birders is a service of the Great Lakes Commission. Visit us at www.glc.org
Messages and content distributed on Birders are the sole responsibility of the subscriber providing such content and
do not reflect the views, policy or position of the Great Lakes
Commission.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Birders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to birders+<unsubscribe...>
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/great-lakes.net/d/msgid/birders/<SJ2PR02MB97082855AC2B459E70F3C488FC362...>
