The Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold recently wrote an article that ran in our Minneapolis Star Tribune on Wednesday, November 14, 2007. It was titled, "What Wild Animals Do. . .When Humans Aren't Looking." The article reported on a Smithsonian Institution project in which fifty motion-triggered cameras were placed strategically along the Appalachian Trail for six hundred miles.

Everyday life in the forest turned out to be both fascinating and funny. Scientists who collected and studied the 1,900 digital photos found out that black bears have increased in numbers greater than anyone knew.

Deer stared into the camera like, well, a deer caught in headlights. Bears attacked or scratched the cameras. According the article, the bears' relationship with the cameras were "producing some extreme close-ups that were hard to decipher. Eventually, researchers realized that they were looking at fuzzy posteriors." Take that, you scientists!

This article made us speculate about what hidden cameras might pick up in our "forest" while we are away. Would a camera find the cats with their arms lovingly around the dog? (Wishful thinking.) Would the bird shout out things we've never heard him say?

What might a hidden camera reveal about animal world in your home and yard?