Rodent rendezvous

The large burrow at the mouth of Badger Head Gulch

The mouth of Badger Head Gulch was a broad dry-wash with a sandstone bank, and in that bank we found a burrow large enough to be a carnivore den.

Since Fred kept coming back to sniff the burrow, it became camera trap set 393.

The camera snapped 155 pictures during the next 42 days of August and September, and the site was bustling with rodent activity.

Four species.

I am not sure what the attraction of the site was to these rodents, but not a single carnivore made an appearance.

Heermann's kangaroos rats were the most common visitors.

Adult Heermann's kangaroo rat (Dipodomys heermanni)

Some of them were juveniles.

Juvenile k-rat before filling the external check pouches

You can tell them from adults by their fetching, sleek, big-eyed looks. Very cute.

after filling the cheek pouches

The California pocket mouse was the other heteromyid rodent that visited the site, and though it is widespread at Chinineas, it was infrequently seen at this site.

The California pocket mouse (Chaetodipus californicus)

Brawl at the badger dig

Set 305: a badger dig in the grassland.

There are several possibilities of course, but when you set a cam at a badger dig you are hoping for a badger.

Badger diggings are common in grassland at Chimineas, because California ground squirrels are abundant.

Set 305 was a ground squirrel burrow that seemed to have been enlarged by a badger.

Craig notes that big clods of dirt indicate that the digger is a badger, rather than a ground squirrel, whose excavation equipment is much smaller.

So we staked a camera next to the burrow, and knowing that diurnal ground squirrels could fill a card in a few days, we set it for night pictures only.

As we viewed the pictures last week, it was apparent that mice outnumbered badgers.

In fact there were no badgers, and less than one out of 3 pictures had an animal in it.

California pocket mice (Chaetodipus californicus) were the most common visitors, and had no doubt caused the false triggers.

Most of the pictures were presumably of one mouse puttering around the burrow tailings and entrance.

One expects small mice to live in small burrows, so my assumption is that this one lived nearby and was foraging for seeds in the exposed soil of the ground squirrel nest.

But it could have had a sub-burrow somewhere within the ground squirrel tunnel.

A few frames later revealed that an intruder had brazenly entered the resident's territory.

For its cheekiness it was paying the price.

The brawlers were locked in mortal combat.

They broke apart and faced off.

At that point the resident retreated to the burrow, and it seemed to be over.

But a few moments later they were at it again, this time boxing.

In the final frame the apparent winner watched the vanquished preparing to retreat into the forest of grass.

The brawl had lasted a little more than a minute.

Victory is sweet.

Troglodytic rodents

California pocket mouse, Chaetodipus californicus

 

Three species of rodents came to the cave, but none was a frequent visitor. 

The pocket mouse, photographed on three different nights seems to have done a little digging and dust bathing. 

   

Digging and dust bathing in the fine sand. 

There is also a series of pictures where the sand magically forms a crater, and our best guess is that a dust bathing pocket mouse was out-of-site doing the work.  

The short-tail of this pocket mouse is an aberration due to the angle.

Two long-tailed species of deer mice have been recorded in the area: the Pinyon mouse (P. truei) and the Brush mouse (P. boylei). 

The Pinyon mouse also has big ears and a dorsal tail stripe that is less than 1/3rd the circumference of the tail.

This looks like a Pinyon mouse -- and a handsome mouse it is.

 

Pinyon mouse (Peromyscus truei), a species of foothill woodland and juniper woodland. 

 

Our old freind the dusky-footed wood rat appeared only once. 

Dusky-footed woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes)