A few from Down Under

[35whelen]

Still getting plenty of pics of the usual culprits on the coast....can only manage a week with a 4gb card in the S600 on my cam over the waterpoint at the moment....and that's with the SSS LCD board set for 2 shots @ a 1 minute timing. Sure takes some time to delete 1000+ pics of 'roos ! But enough hog deer making an appearance to keep me swapping cards & batteries. This setup with 4 AA Duracells and 2 Eneloops is reliably filling a 4gb card @ 6mp for around 1400 shots and the batteries are still powering up the camera. Here's a few from the latest sets.....one cam on the waterpoint and another (S600 1040 Simple Sniper) on a trail in the scrub. Cheers from Down Under

35Whelen

[peanut]

Nice pics as usual Doug. What do you call the one that looks like what i would call a fox.

[bowhunter57]

great pics,nice looking buck.

[35whelen]

Peanut...down here we call 'em..."a fox" too. They are the European red fox, an introduced animal that have been decimating our small native wildlife for the past 200 years. Pretty common most anywhere but we only have the red models....no neat-looking grey ones like you have in the US. Cheers

35Whelen

[bbahunter]

Great pictures!

[tbass]

Great pictures Doug. What's the first one?

[35whelen]

Tony...first pic is a Swamp Wallaby.....a smallish, bush-dwelling critter similar to the kangaroo. This is a better pic of one...a female with large joey in the pouch. Cheers

35Whelen

[Gibby]

Amazing Pics Doug,
How remote is that waterpoint? How is it filled? I see the hose coming off the side is it connected to an underground water source?

This setup with 4 AA Duracells and 2 Eneloops is reliably filling a 4gb card @ 6mp for around 1400 shots and the batteries are still powering up the camera

Is this the SS in the 1020 case?


Gibby

[Willy]

Some beautiful images Doug. Keep them coming.

[35whelen]

Gibby...this spot is quite close to home for me...10 min in the truck and a 15 min rip across the lake in the boat to some private land where I can hunt hog deer during the April season. It's remote in that the location can only be reached by boat and a relatively quiet and secluded amongst a high-usage coastal lake system.

One of the biggest problems for the critters in this coastal country is getting a good drink of water and most waterholes are quite salty and dry-out quicky in the summer. They are usually just depressions dug out by the 'roos and they hold small amounts of water but not of good quality. I decided to build a "catchment roof" on this property with the owners ecouragement and cleared a suitable area in amongst the scrub, erected a free-standing 6m X 5m sloped roof with a spouting at the low end and installed 4 1200L tanks underneath to store the collected rainwater. The water is gravity fed to a small water trough I made out of a cut-down 200L "wheelie" refuse bin with the water flow regulated by a simple float valve. All the gear for this had to be transported bit-by-bit in the boat which in itself was quite a task but now it's up and working I pretty happy with the results and I'm sure the critters appreciate the nice fresh drinking water year 'round as well.

When it rains the spouting directs the water to the tanks and the critters come and drink when they feel the need. As you can see with the game trails the area gets heavy usage all year 'round as the alternative (ground water with 50% salinity) is a poor 2nd option. I have erected a small platform in a sturdy red gum tree about 40m from the trough and use this as a high seat during the April Hog deer season for rifle hunting....got a nice trophy stag 3 years in a row. I leave the water turned on all year and don't ration it or anything....so far its been pretty-well self-sustaining but I do have a 1" hose line to the property owners cabins water tank supply (about 400m away) and can pump from this if I need to so that's handy.

I normally use one of my S600 LCD Snapshot Sniper units at this spot so I can control the trigger frequency to try and filter-out the kangaroos...I normally set it for 2 shots at a one minute interval day & night and still can only wring a week or so out of a 4gb card. The 'roos tend to spend a lot of time at the water and lay about in the sun so I need to control the shot-count to a degree which I can with the LCD board. I save my Simple Snipers for setting on game trails around there in the bush which have animals passing thru quite quickly and they are good for that. Gives me something to set the cams on over the summer....but I do have a couple of units up in the mountains on the sambar at the moment which I'll collect in 10 days or so. They'll have been out for 8 weeks by then and should have a few pics I'd hope. Last spring I had 2 1020 Simple Sniper S600's with 4 AA's for EP out in the mountains for 8 weeks on the sambar...each had a shot-count of around 800 and both were still going when I collected them. All batteries tested around 1.35V each...so some juice left in them still.

Here's a few pics of my tank & trough set-up and the high-seat.
Cheers from AU

35Whelen

Hog deer drinking at a natural water hole : poor water quality



My waterpoint & high seat overlooking it