Capturing images of wildlife freely roaming through the woods of Pennsylvania

Walking down a trail in the woods, it’s easy to contemplate what else has been using that same path through the wilderness.

Trails just didn’t appear on their own. It could be a path worn by deer, turkeys or even a bear that has found that piece of forest to be a quiet, safe place to call home.

Those thoughts are part of the reason I enjoy using trail cameras in forest lots near my home. You never know when an unusual creature will be passing through the area.

I place my cameras near trails, old logging roads and creek crossings where it’s apparent animals prefer to walk.  Placing them in these “high traffic” areas of the woods also gives me and my dog, Lilly, a good place to walk and get some exercise, too.

Sunday I was able to check on eight of my cameras and it was interesting to see how the foliage has grown and what animals have arrived since spring.

Summer is a fun time to watch nature grow through the lens of trail cameras.

Fawns were born a couple of months ago and are rapidly growing throughout the summer months. At the same time, bucks are growing their antlers. It’s incredible to think that a mature buck without antlers in March could have beams that measure 20 inches long by the end of summer. While not every buck gets a large rack, the smaller antlers are interesting to see, too.

Motion-activated trail cameras serve many purposes for outdoor enthusiasts. For nature lovers, they are a nice way to capture images of deer in their natural, unguarded state. Many times when we try to photograph wildlife with handheld cameras, the animals have a sense they are being watched. That doesn’t usually happen when the camera is fastened to a tree in the forest.

For hunters, cameras reveal what animals are in the area and what times of day they may be passing through. Some travel corridors are used in the morning while other trails are used late afternoon and evenings. It all depends on where the animals can find food and quiet shelter to rest.

This week’s Outdoors page reveals some of the scenes of summer that happen in the quiet wilderness near my home in Somerset County.

I hope you enjoy these images and it inspires you to get a camera or two out in the woods near you.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors .

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Capturing images of wildlife freely roaming through the woods of Pennsylvania