◆ PARALLAX

I set a Trailmaster 1500 about fifty yards from my deer stand on the ridge. Frame 127 from this morning shows something upright at the tree line, right at the frame edge. It is dark, and at that hour the rising sun is behind it, so no detail.

I am ninety percent sure it is a black bear standing on its hind legs. Bears do this. They stand and sniff and look for mates. I know the behaviour.

But it is that ten percent that made me post. The shape is wider at the shoulders than I would have guessed for any bear around here, and the stand seems taller than I would expect. There is a stump in frame, and the width of the animal at the shoulder exceeds the stump's height.

I did not see tracks when I checked this morning. No scat. No bent saplings. Just the one frame. So either it is a bear doing what bears do and moving on, or the camera caught something else at the exact moment I happened to be taking a break from the stand.

Trailmaster 1500 is a solid unit. Before I bet one way or the other, I need a few details:

- What type of flash? 35mm incandescent, or are you running one of the IR models?
- How high did you mount it?
- Is there a frame before or after that shows the same animal? If frame 128 or 126 catches it on all fours, it is a bear nine times out of ten.
- Stump in frame: can you estimate its height?

Bears stand more often than most people expect, and the silhouette can look enormous at dawn when you are not sure what you are seeing. But the details will tell.

The stump scale is your best friend here. If that stump is four feet, and the animal's shoulder tops it easily, you have something in the range of five and a half, maybe six feet upright. Black bears in decent country can hit six on their hind legs, especially males, especially if the hind legs are on slightly higher ground than the camera.

Post the measurements on the stump if you can. That will narrow it down fast.

Log the date, time, weather, ambient temperature if you have it, and any known bear activity in the area during the last month. Your game warden will know.

Do not throw the frame away even if it turns out to be a bear. That is data. The more people log actual bear behaviour from their trail cameras, the less nonsense gets printed about "unusual" silhouettes that are just bears being bears.

It is a bear.

I have the same dark-shape-at-dawn on my own farm cam from two years running. Same model Trailmaster, mounted on the south post of the equipment shed. Frame shows something upright, wide, very dark, in the gap between the scrub and the far tree line.

Both times it was a bear. Once I saw the next frame: all fours, heading for the blackberry patch. Once I found the tracks the next morning, fresh enough that I could count the toes. The other time there was no follow-up, but the pattern was the same and the stump I had by the camera for reference showed the shoulder about even with its top.

You will probably feel better when you find it is a bear. I did.