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Native Californian, biologist, wildlife conservation consultant, retired Smithsonian scientist, father of two daughters, grandfather of 4 small primates. INTJ. Believes nature is infinitely more interesting than shopping malls. Born 100 years too late.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The owl and the pussy cats



I set the cam at this mossy rock at a creek crossing on Dec. 6. Nothing happened there at all until Dec 20 when the gray fox showed up for two pics. The pumas came on Dec 22nd and 23rd. I got two pictures of them each day. These are the same two cats I photographed 18 days earlier sitting on the road below our house (see "No poodles tonight"). You can still see vague spots from the cub's neonatal coat, and from the size of its feet I would guess that its a male.

But let's not ignore the screech owl (or is it saw whet owl), who made its appearance the day after Christmas. When our windows are open in the summer we listen to this fellow's serenade, but so far he hasn't moved in to either of two nest boxes I hung in the woods.

3 comments:

Jack West said...

Dear "Musang" Trapper Chris,
Thanks for sharing your wonderful and special photo's with your mates. I do hope that one day there will be some funding for us both to go back to "Lore Lindu National Park" or "Gunung Ambang" or indeed to "** 'New mammal' seen in Borneo woods **
A cat-sized mammal which appears to be new to science is spotted in the forests of Borneo.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4501152.stm >".
There are still some un-finished "trapping" to do > and obviously you have become much, much better now > as you're able to teach the fox to climb ....
Macrogalidia greetings,
Jack

shteller... said...

Great photos, Chris. The Cat looks great. Absolutely fantastic. Bharat Bhushan bharatbhushan@yahoo.com

Owlman said...

Chris
I'm very impressed with your success and it gives those of us who only dream of getting a glimpse of such reclusive wildlife species a rare opportunity to be there vicariously. That is definitely a Screech owl
apparently alert to something above it. One of my favorite professors at S.F.State was Joe Hall and he is a avid "camera trapper" as well. I remember a trip to the Cleary Reserve when he set up a camera trap. One of the characters in the class went out at night and "mooned" his trap.
He wasn't very amused as I recall. His daughter was one of my outstanding Staff leaders at the UCD (California)Raptor center in the mid 80's and while she was there he came up and set up his trap and got some pretty good shots of Barn Owls flying from a nestbox.