Tarvo Siilaberg, a Põlva County farmer, left the trail cam in a forest earlier this year and it soon passed from his mind. But once he remembered and located it, he found the fully working camera had been "visited" by moose, deer, cranes and other wildlife — including a bear.

The camera's battery and systems were still running, and its memory had not filled up either.

"Part of it was simple absent-mindedness. We have quite a few camera traps for animals and one ended up in a spot I couldn't remember for a long time," said Siilaberg, owner of Raja Farm.

When he went looking for the camera in the forest, he found it hard to spot because of its nature as a trail cam — well camouflaged.

Some of the visitors captured on the footage were more surprising than others.

"We already knew that a moose trail passes through our land, which is why we put the camera at the edge of the bog forest," Siilaberg explained.

"The camera was up at the edge of the forest, where the ditch bank meets the meadow — we happened to place it right at an animal crossroads," he said. "Deer appear in front of the trail camera about as often as you'd see a pigeon in the city."

One of the last images the camera captured before it was retrieved was also one of the most impressive: a bear.

"That was also the first photo I saw when I took the camera down from the tree. Then I knew there was something very good here," said Siilaberg, whose farm is in Kanassaare village in Põlva municipality.

"The picture of the cranes is my favorite," he said. "I hope to forget my camera in the forest again soon — then good things will start happening, if a person keeps their hands away. The result is definitely worth it."

Of the animals he had hoped to see, Siilaberg said he had wanted footage of a lynx, but there wasn't any.

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