The beauty of trail cameras is that they reveal the natural behaviour of wild animals.

And often it is the sounds made by wildlife that are the most intriguing.

Case in point is this 30-second video of a fawn crying for its mother in the forests of the Cowichan Valley — a cry that sounds uncannily like that of a human baby.

We naturally wonder, where is the mother? Is she dead, perhaps from a car accident? Or are the two just temporarily separated? And could the fawn survive winter on its own?

Chris Darimont, who hunts deer for food, is a professor at the University of Victoria and Raincoast Research Chair in Applied Conservation Science.

After viewing the video, he describes the fawn's cry as a contact or bleat call for its mother. "Sometimes they are separated by many metres at this age. So, mama is likely ok."

If not, "it would be a hard winter for the little one," Darimont said.

Hunting retail outlets sell fawn distress calls to help hunters lure in adult deer. Predators are also attracted to distress calls.

On a different note, know there are risks associated with placing a trail camera in a forest. It can be stolen or vandalized, and wildlife can also be curious about a novel object.

Which brings me to the second video in which a buck shows special interest in my camera. It sniffs the object and appears to chew the hard plastic and even resorts to repeated butting.