So I've talked enough about my overnight trip to Winsted this past weekend, so here's my field report. I started out mid afternoon on Saturday and arrived at the Campground where I secured a campsite as both Base camp and a place where I could leave my car without worrying about it too much. I quickly realized I had brought too much stuff, considered the hike to my blind spot was a 2 mile hike uphill most of the way, winding along the counters of the mountain in question. I left
the nonessentials behind, which unfortunately included some recording equipment I wish i had the next morning.
I lost a little time getting reorganized but got underway and made the hike up the mountain to a spot I estimate to be about three quarters of the way up. The site itself bears a little description. It is basically a flat bluff, fifty feet over the area just off the trail. From this spot you get a decent view underneath you going out a few hundred feet, and given there was still a decent amount of foilage on the trees I was out of sight from the most part to. The reason I called this "Hobo Camping" is that I was also testing out a piece of equipment that allowed me to forego a tent. I had recently gotten a Hennesy allweather
Hammock, which serves the same basic role but it is much more friendly to traveling light.
I got set up much more quickly this way, and set about getting in an afternoon nap, to get rested for the night ahead. I still had with me a nightvision capable video camera, and an IR spotlight to amplify it's range as well as a parabolic microphone to hear approaching animals, or our big hairy friend. Waking up just around dusk, I got things set up and set about call blasting every hallf hour or so, using a whooping sound that mimicks the sounds I've heard here before, including an
incident last year, when I was "followed" by some wood knocking after using a similar vocalization. By followed, I mean the source of it was not staying stationary but seemed to be moving closer at the time.
The night itself, was quiet, and maybe a little chilly, but I did have good moonlight over me. Sadly, no activity occurred turing the night so I turned in around four thirty or so. ANd i slept until sunrise woke me up. The morning was spent doing some hiking in the area to see if I had any visitors bit found no tracks, etc. Later in the morning I began packing up and stopped to observe a group of hikers walking through on the trail underneath me and a little off in the distance. It was after
they had passed by about ten minutes after, that I did in fact hear another of these "whoops" from a distance of a few hundred feet. It was close, and made the noise only once. In leaving with my gear packed up, I checked the area around where I had heard the vocal, but found no tracks either.
I have heard these whoops several times in this area, and have yet to see the source, so they remain a mystery. I would think they are most likely a bird, but know of none in the region that make such a sound. The positives I took out of this are getting over the apprehensions of doing a solo outting and will hopefully will learn from the minor
mistakes that I made this time out.
