Bears on the puma kill

After filling its stomach with one haunch the puma left and never returned. But 4 bears came to feed nightly and eventually a few other scavengers made their appearance.

Murphy's Law struck on the second night when the camera failed, but this whipped me into overkill mode. On each following night I staked two or three cameras. Each one operated independently and triggered one or two 27 watt LED lights.

I was learning on the run. When all cameras were in operation too much light marred some pretty cool clips. All I could do was adjust the position of cameras and lights every afternoon based on the previous night's results. I just didn't have the moxie to test the lights in darkness.

Then Murphy's Law got me again: the camera that gave by far the best clips in terms of lighting and perspective failed to record sound! 

I kept plugging away, and the game was up at the end of the week when the bears lost interest in the scraps.

I had an overwhelming 7 hours of very interesting video of variable quality.

This 3+ minute movie gives you an idea of what happened at the carcass on just one night and the next day.   

A Cougar on a Kill

Last year, a week before Christmas I stumbled into a black-tailed buck's carcass on a deer trail below the house. It caught me completely off guard. My plan that afternoon was to set a camera at a wood rat's nest. That idea was now null and void. This was a rare opportunity to camera trap a cougar on its kill. 

The carcass was fresh. The kill had probably taken place at dawn, giving the cat enough time to pluck the rib cage, and snack on the haunch and foreleg. The light of day and sounds of the awakening community nearby probably curtailed the meal.  

I prepared a sapling of bay laurel to stake the camera while Fred sniffed around the carcass. I was plagued with all kinds of "what if's". Like what if it drags the carcass away? (You're out of luck) What if it feeds with its back to the camera?  (You're out of luck again) What if it doesn't  come back? (Then you're really out of luck).

With the camera staked next to the deer trail, I lashed the LED to a stout manzanita near by. The camera's walk test showed that the flood light was working. The sun was setting. I didn't want to give kitty a surprise. So we packed and headed up the hill to home.

Here's what the camera recorded.


A Cougar on its Kill from Chris Wemmer on Vimeo.


See a higher definition version  here

Rough & Tumble Bears

Rough & Tumble Bears from Chris Wemmer on Vimeo.

Little Rabbit Climbs Big Sage

Pygmy Rabbit from Chris Wemmer on Vimeo.


I had the good fortune this month to spend a few days in the sage steppe of the eastern Sierra Nevada, where I managed to snag these clips of a pygmy rabbit.

The species has been on my camera trapping bucket list for several years now.

For a lot more about this charming lagomorph, see Nature of a Man Blog, and be sure to search Ken's other posts for a lot more about Pygmy Rabbits.

I am grateful for Ken's help in getting these video clips, and sincerely appreciate the Catani family's efforts to protect  habitat for California's wildlife.