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Animal photos sent by naturalist and outdoor enthusiast Ben Shrader who has delighted us for months with his camera shots of the wild and woolly creatures in the forests of Botetourt County. (A big apology for including a "c" in his last name in previous posts.)
He said along with the photos:

"The rare photo here is 615x that I believe to be a weasel. If so this is my first photo. I had not seen one in over 50 years. Casting doubt is the possibility that it is a white bellied fox squirrel. They sometimes have a white nose like this. The photo is enhanced and cropped. I fail to see a squirrel tail but it is in a shadow."

"At this site a bear first destroyed the Cuddeback Camera, # 77 was made after the camera was broken and hanging upside down by the lock. I replaced it later with the BuckeyeCam. It appears it is near a coyote den, as I had 10 different photos of coyotes some of them with 2 or 3 in them. I have heard that coyotes love skunks, note that Coyote #611x is just minutes behind skunk #610x."
"This and the following photos concludes this year's Smithsonian Project. Of my 12 sets, 11 had bears, 11 had raccoons, 11 had deer and 5 had bobcats. One set was near a hickory tree and had nearly 200 photos of gray squirrels discharging the batteries. Even though this ends the Smithsonian project this year I will still keep out some cameras."

Thanks, Ben!