Will the real Ermine please stand up

September 3, 4:39AM -- in the showtl's underworld

We are just back from the north fork of the Yuba River.

Yesterday, the Codger, the Redhead, Audrey, and Fred pulled the last three camera traps, and I am terribly amped.

The picture above is one of the reasons.

You may recall that the codger was uncertain that "Herman the Ermine" was correctly identified in a recent "underworld post".

A few commentors thought the suspect was an American mink.

The unmistakable ermine pictured above confirms that the previous mustelid was indeed Slinky the Minkie.

This ermine was photographed in the same Aplodontia (=showtl) tunnel where the mink made its appearance last month.

To get an idea of the relative sizes of this little predator and its prey, compare the two pictures, which I have cropped more or less to the same size.

Like the mink, the ermine evidently failed to find the showtl, which showed up 6 days later.

Its absence makes you wonder if predator detection changed the rodent's use of the tunnel system.

Anyway, we're not done yet.

We staked out several Aplodontia burrows for camera trapping next year.

Our winter work is cut out for us. We've got to get faster cameras so we can diminish the number of false exposures down there in the showtl's underworld.

There's a lot of traffic and probably a few visitors that are just too fast for our cameras.

And to give you a bigger view of the showtl's busy underworld, here's an uncropped photo.

Peeping in

The hollow belly of the red fir seems like a safe and snuggly place.  

It's quiet in there and it's dry, even though frass rains down 24/7 from the gallery of wood ants above.  

Bob's observation that "the cavity . . . looks like a bear den" was right on the money. 

Ten hours after we left the scene a bear peeked into the cavity.

In the next week the opening framed a robin several times,

and a chipmunk made a brief visit.

Then a small bear paid a visit,

and toppled the camera.

The camera took pictures of wood ants on thr floor of the den until we came back and reset it.

If I had a time lapse camera with 5 months of battery power, this would be a fine place to monitor a sleeping bear.

[If you like this sort of thing, be sure to check Random Truth's bear-in-the-log pictures.]

Denizens of Deadman

A chickaree aka  Douglas squirrel  came first. 

Well, Jake volunteered to join me, so I didn't have to climb Deadman alone.

Normally Fred would have been there too, but the redhead took him home so I could wrap up the workshop and pack up without distractions.

The cameras had been out for only 48 hours and memory should have led me to them like a bird dog, but even with the GPS we bumbled about looking for the first set.

Of course we checked the pictures as soon as we found it  -- the moment of truth had arrived.

The first visitor to the set, a runty chickaree and doubtless young of the year, left one picture the morning after we set the camera.

We clicked forward . . . blank images . . . and hallelujah!

There was bushy-tail poised on a rock and showing its diagnostically furry bicolored caudal appendage.

The bushy-tailed wood rat (Neotoma cinerea).

It had visited the second night and like the chickaree had left but one photo.

We resumed our climb to the top of the scree and found the second camera just before noon.

A pinon mouse had visited the first night.

Judging from those big ears  it was a Pinon mouse (Peromyscus truei)

And Little Chief Hare made a cameo appearance the next day.

Deadman had paid off, and we ate lunch with satisfaction beside the set.

Our mountaineering exercise had proved that habitat is often key to finding one's target species.

Both pika and bushy-tailed wood rat evolved in the footprints of glaciers.

For two years I had sought the wood rat among boulders and outcrops only a half mile from here.

It should have been there, but only after ploughing the literature did I learn that talus was also one of bushy-tail's favored habitats.

Our routes in and around Deadman Scree.

We explored the rest of the scree into early afternoon, and recorded waypoints for a big red fir, and a new colony of mountain beaver.

Then we drove back to camp to show off the pictures.

A quick trip to Sierra County

Sierra Buttes, not far from the camera traps

I made a quick trip this week to San Francisco State University's Sierra Nevada Field Campus, and knew I was almost there when Sierra Buttes popped into view.

Purpose? . . . to set camera traps for the upcoming workshop.

Left at 6:15, sans Fred (no dogs allowed at the field campus) and arrived at the field station at 9:00.

The ride had its distractions -- like the profusion of bush monkey flower in the Feather River Canyon.

Near Graeagle I stopped to photograph a field of lupine, and the perfume almost moved me to poetry.

At destination I barged into the alder thickets looking for Aplodon.

A demographic event has reduced the once thriving colony to a ghost town with one active burrow.

I set a cam at the single burrow and made two additional sets in the area.

Next I scouted logging roads for additional sites, but snow blocked my old Honda.

Then up to Yuba Pass where I pondered my next move over a sandwich -- decided to head for Deadman scree.

The problem was the Yuba River.

This codger wasn't up to rock hopping, long jumping, or pole vaulting the white water to reach the other side.

I drove back and forth looking for fallen logs, and found one that was safe to cross. It led to a boggy flood plain and an obstacle course of windblown limbs and fallen logs.

I set two more cameras with bear guards, one on a creek I had worked last year -- or so I thought.

Then I struck out for the home of pikas and bushy-tailed woodrats -- that vast expanse of scree that glares through the trees on Rt 49.

Having studied the quad the night before, I was relatively sure of my position.

Stumbling upon ancient patches of talus in the old red fir forest reinforced my confidence that I was on the right track.

The scree was southwest of me.

I had to be getting closer, but the expected opening in the trees didn't appear.

Unfortunately, talus slopes aren't shown on my GPS's topo map, and after crossing several drainages I realized that the various creeks flowing from the vicinity of Deadman Lake all look alike.

The scree was in the other direction.

I decided to cut my losses high on the slope and set the sixth cam.

It was close to 4:00.

I looped back and headed downhill until the slope became a bit treacherous.

But there was a shortcut --  a very large red fir that had fallen steeply across the Yuba.

I crossed it in slow motion, tippy-toed through a campsite, and found my car a a half mile up the road.

Mission accomplished.

Six cams are set for the workshop.

Camera Trapping Workshop--July, 2010

Deadman Peak and Deadman Lake, near the Sierra Nevada Field Campus

My camera trapping workshop has been scheduled once again at San Francisco State University's Sierra Nevada Field Campus.

For information about the field campus and its course offerings click the website here.

You can also get registration materials at the website.

Regular readers of this blog have seen how much fun camera trapping can be, so I hope some of you will be interested in enrolling.

If you are interested, read on.

CAMERA TRAPPING WORKSHOP SCHEDULE 

SIERRA NEVADA FIELD CAMPUS, SIERRA COUNTY, CA 

July 18-23, 2010

Sunday, July 18

• Arrive: noon through late afternoon.
• Dinner: 6:00 PM. 
• Evening: Class introductions, workshop goals, and participants voice their special interests. 
• Power Point presentation: History of camera trapping.

Shadow chipmunk at the field station -- a good teacher 

about the topic of framing photos

Monday, July 19 

• Breakfast: 7:00AM (make your own bag lunch) 
• 8:30 AM: Topic: Making camera sets. “Macro sets” near camp (close–ups of golden-mantled ground squirrels, shadow chipmunks, chickarees, and mountain beavers): hollow log, burrow entrance, and natural feeding stations--like seed and cone middens. 
• Activity (mid morning): Collect cams at Red Fir Ravine (car pool to site, short hike up into ravine) or stay in camp with own cameras. 
• Lunch: in field or in camp
• Afternoon: Return to field campus, download photos, compare results from morning sets.
• Dinner: 6:00 PM 
• Power Point presentation/discussion: Camera trap sets (trails, waterholes and natural and artificial attractions); special sets: arboreal, hollow log, and subterranean; Predicting behavior and pre-visualizing images. 
• Other Topics covered: Camera attachment (trees versus posts, telescoping poles, bungies, cables, special attachments, hardware), camouflaging cameras, camera security (people and bears), PIR sensors (strengths and weaknesses), “GPSing” locations of sets. 

 We'll set some cams at Deadman talus slope for pikas

Tuesday, July 20 

• Breakfast: 7:00AM (make your own bag lunch) 
• 8:30 AM: Use of baits and lures: legal restrictions, visual, scent and sound lures.
• Activity: Set cams on talus slope/rock slide (pikas, marmots, weasels) (car pool to site.
• Lunch: in field 
• Afternoon: Return to field campus, check cams near camp, download photos, compare results. 
• Dinner: 6:00 PM 
• Power Point presentation/discussion: Passive infra-red sensors and other triggers, using white flash of infra-red illumination, using external flash, reducing eye shine, etc.
• After sunset: Owl calling (car pool to site) 

A spring in Red Fir Ravine, 

where saw whet owls bathe, and mountain beavers forage.

Wednesday, July 21 

• Breakfast: 7:00AM (make your own bag lunch) 
• 8:30 AM: Topic: camera trapping databases (inventory of sets, spreadsheet of camera trapping results); image database software; digital darkroom software, GPS mapping software. 
• Activity (mid morning): Hike to Deadman Lake and scree (optional, but a chance to see pikas).
• Lunch: in field (or in camp). 
• Afternoon: Return to field campus, download photos, compare results from morning camp sets. 
• Dinner: 6:00 PM 
• Power Point presentation/discussion: Animal psychology for camera trappers, species differences in behavior and movement. 
• After sunset: Flying squirrels: observations and photography. 

Marten photo taken the night before the course in '08; 

the cam had been there a month.

Thursday, July 22 

• Breakfast: 7:00AM (make your own bag lunch)
• 8:30 AM: Topic: Making your own: General guidelines and links for hacking cameras, i.e., “homebrew” trail cameras. 
• Activity (mid morning): Collect cams from outlying sites (talus slope, ravine springs, mountain beaver burrows). 
• Lunch: in field 
• Afternoon: Return to field campus, download photos, compare results.
• Dinner: 6:00 PM 
• Power Point presentation/discussion: Wildlife surveys presense-absense (single species versus general surveys), population indices, and special research applications. 
• General discussion: Topics of class choice; hand out evaluation forms (questionnaires); copy and share photos taken during course. 

Golden -mantled ground squirrel in a hollow log

Friday, July 23

• Breakfast: 7:00AM (make your own bag lunch) 
• Activity: (1) collect cams and pack, (2) return evaluations (3) class photo 
• Farewell and Departure