You know and I know that beaver dams are good for lots of things. Fires and floods and drought and salmon and nitrogen. But at its most basic level beaver dams are also passage ways for a myriad of creatures that otherwise would be unwilling to cross the water. We’ve seen house cats and opossums pick their way across in Martinez. And many a photographer has benefited from this wildlife highway. Some with more skill than others.
Camera trap photographer captures stunning wildlife images
TETTEGOUCHE STATE PARK — Ryan Pennesi has a favorite spot in this North Shore park where he hit the 
jackpot with wildlife sightings. Well, not sightings so much as trappings. And not trapping like grab the animal by the leg but camera traps, a fancy name for a fancier version of the ever-popular trail camera.
In that one spot Pennesi’s camera captured deer, wolves, coyotes, red fox, gray fox, snowshoe hare, ruffed grouse, squirrels and a badger.
Remote cameras are getting very popular, and more and more complex. Check out the pine marten. We almost never get to see them anymore.
In 2013 and 2014, when he worked at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center near Finland, Pennesi would ask the students to form a hypothesis about what animal lived in a certain burrow in the ground, or what animal was visiting a specific tree or leaving a track. Then they would put up a trail camera and wait for the visual confirmation.
“They make a really good teaching tool,’’ Pennesi said of trail cameras. “The students like the technology and the photos pull them into the natural world, to wildlife.”
Seeing the students’ reaction inspired Pennesi to experiment with trail cameras. He’s also worked to improve his traditional (hand-held, in-person) photography skills with help from renowned Twin Cities-based nature photographer Benjamin Olson.
About five years ago Pennesi began to dabble in homemade camera traps using high-end digital cameras, remote flashes, a passive infrared motion/heat sensor hardwired to the camera’s shutter and a hard, waterproof camera case. He uses wide-angle lenses — between 10 to 35 mm — that can take in a wider field of view, a little more forgiving when you don’t know exactly where your subject is going to show up.
Ryan has some excellent advise for trackers-turned-wildlife photographers.
Water is often a magnet for wildlife. Logs laying across streams (in open water season) are remarkably well used. Beaver dams are like freeways for critters looking to cross ponds and streams.
Well actually, Ryan, beaver dams are are than freeways. They’re more like the office and housing complex around freeways too, and the reason wildlife is crossing in the first place. If it weren’t for that ‘freeway’ lots of the wildlife wouldn’t be there at all.
Beavers look forward to your thank you note, Ryan.
