End of Year bear

Rich Tenaza just sent me this and several other pictures of a young adult blond-colored bear at the Cleary Reserve.  

The cams had not been checked for several months, but were dry and intact, despite heavy rains. (Our luck keeping cams dry hasn't been as good in nearby Marin County.)

In Rich's words, "The bear was at the waterhole/spring on 28 December from 10:38 to sometime after 10:47 pm.  The cam got 42 pictures it in that time. At 10:47 he moved the cam, so that was the end of the picture taking.  

"The bear then went to the cougar turd set from 10:54-55  and had his picture taken four times there.  He was also there that morning at 5:29 a.m. 

"The next day, 29 Dec, he had his picture taken at another cam, where a log blocks the trail, at 5:59 a.m. and again from 10:24-1033 p.m."

This was a winter stroll.

Bears are known to do that, even though they sleep most of the winter.

A comely bobcat

A comely bobcat paused to look at the camera and then was gone. From Rich's recent dispatch from the Cleary Reserve cams.

Pumas--more of the same

Let me know if you are tired of puma pictures. Though pictures of charismatic rodents like showtls send me into falsetto exclamatory rapture, I still get a thrill from pumas.

Rich found these two shots on one of the Cleary Reserve cams this weekend. And speaking of thrill, one of the photos was taken only three hours before he arrived on the scene. Not to worry. He had a class of students with him, which usually disperses wildlife for miles around. (One of these days I'll tell the story of a hike with a group of Brazilians.)



It looks like a young adult female. The spots on the inside of the hind leg could be remnants of the spotted coat of juveniles. If they don't disappear with the next moult they'll help us identify this cat in the future.

Oh yes -- a confession. These pictures sure helped me get the lead out today. I shifted into overdrive trying to finish my winterizing projects. Once the firewood is cut, the brush shredded, gutters cleaned, and the new skylight is in place, I plan to meet Rich in Marin county to begin a new camera trapping survey.

Meanwhile, just sign me, Harry Homeowner.

Visitors of the great pool-Part 1

We're back on the mountain in Napa county where a couple weeks ago Rich set a cam at "the great pool".

The pool is a year-round source of water. Back in the spring we had a camera there, but it was set for night photos only, and yielded only a gray fox and dusk shot of a Steller's jay. We concluded that other sources of water, unknown to us, were supplying the animals' needs, and pulled the camera.

By August, the water supply to the old lodge had all but dried up. Rich surmised that the springs had also gone dry, so he set a cam at the big pool again. This time he set it for round-the-clock photography.

It paid off with photos of four species of birds, all new camera trapping records, and 3 mammals. (We'll talk birds tomorrow).

The Bruin above is the first black black bear we have seen here. Black bears (Ursus americanus) come in two basic color phases -- melanistic or black bears and brown bears. Bears of the brown color phase actually come in a variety of tones, from blondish to dark brown. There is also a curious record of a bicolored bear, brown above and black below.



Adaptive coloration of mammals has been of interest to me for a long time, so allow me a brief digression. The relative abundance of black- and brown-colored bears differs between areas, as most North American readers probably know. There are east-west and north-south gradients in the relative frequencies of these two color phases.

The assumption is that both coat colors are adaptive, and each color gives its bearers advantages under given ecological conditions. In general, black black bears are found in more humid areas, while brown ones occur in drier habitats. The same holds true for melanism in a fairly large number of mammals. It could be a matter of protective coloration (an older interpretation) or it may be related to a number of linked physiological traits. At any rate, this is what geneticists call balancing polymorphism, and there are examples of it in many species of vertebrates and invertebrates.



Oh yes, the other pool visitors were a squirrel and an opossum.

Tomorrow we'll look at some of the birds.

Coyote shows itself

Rich just sent me the most recent pictures from the mountain. You can call it uncertainty, nervousness, suspicion, or ambivalence. The song dog has seen the camera but still wants to sniff those scats. It lingered long enough for two pictures. It's rangy enough to be a young adult.



The cub was following mama bear. Look at those scats on the ground and compare them between photographs. That cub is a wee little guy.



As far as we know, the creeks on the mountain have run dry. All the same, Rich reports there were no pictures taken at the water hole. He changed the setting for 24 hr shooting instead of night time only. If we don't get pictures next time, there must be other water sources we don't know about. When the weather cools off we'll have to do some exploring.

Fooled by the rattlers

Here's what my camera trapping buddy Rich wrote last week after checking the trap line on the mountain in Napa County.

By way of background, we had set a cam in the "snake pit" on the last visit, and were anticipating some exciting images of rattlers swallowing mice and rats.

It didn't happen. Rich said the snake pit was lacking snakes, and the cam hadn't taken a single picture. It seems they have moved into the old stone lodge.

Here's Rich's email.

"On August 1st I walked into the lodge hallway and was headed for the fireplace room when a loud rattling stopped me dead in my tracks. After a face-off, the snake uncoiled and slithered into the cot storage room, and I went looking for something I could use to pin the rattler without harming it.

"In the storage rooms I spotted a 4 foot length of 3/8 inch wooden doweling and grabbed it up. On my way back to the snake I noticed the doweling had a loop of fine string at one end indicating someone had been noosing lizards with it. Whoever that was, thanks for the use of your tool. I found the rattler hiding behind the vacuum cleaner in a corner of the cot room, noosed it, took a couple photos, and then released it out by the old cesspool "snake pit."



I responded, "Seems like the rattlers moved in the house, huh? Was your grandson with you? Who took the pic?"

"I took the pictures on a tripod."

Codger: "You must have felt like the lone trapper on the mountain. Must have been nice wrestling rattlers."

Rich: "Naw, I don't really relish wrestling rattlers like I did 40 years ago. But they sure are easy compared to things like mambas and cobras, aren't they? Wasn't it nice of the Creator to give them well-defined necks for us naturalists to grab hold of? I think that kind of empathy proves the Creator is a naturalist, and shouldn't it follow that naturalists therefore should be recognized as deities? Tell that to the Redhead.

(Hmmm. Codger's thoughts: Rich knows who's the boss in my house. No way she's going to read that comment. Nice try though. . . . .)

Rich: "Must admit that after getting into it, "wrestling" the rattler was fun, just like most everything else we do in our "work" is fun.

Predator with prey (From the mountain)

Br'er fox nailed a wood rat, and walked past a camera trap before eating it.

It's not common to get a camera trap photo of predation, but that's what Rich Tenaza found this weekend when he checked the cams on the mountain in Napa county.

It would have been nice if wiley fox had faced the camera, but I'm not complaining. We are mighty pleased.

Back on the mountain, Part 6

A family of gray foxes gave us pictures at several cameras on the mountain.

The fellow cocking his leg above is probably the father, and below he is with his mate. I can't tell them apart. The one in the foreground is rubbing its neck on leaves of catmint.



Here is one of the parents with a pup (I think). Sniffing lips. The youngster looks to be about two thirds adult size.



And here are two pups resting on the same log. The coat has adult colors (washed out by the flash), but it's still a bit fluffy. The short muzzle gives them the puppy look.

Back on the mountain

Rich disappeared as soon as he unpacked, but I knew where to find him. He was sprawled in the weeds next to the snake pit eyeing a western diamondback through the zoom lens of his Nikon. (Yes, that's his picture.) He crawled a little closer for another shot and the reptile lurched over the edge and bellyflopped on the bottom of the septic tank. It sounded like a deflated tire hitting a cement floor.

"Wow!"

"A flying snake!"

We were back at the Cleary Reserve, supplied for an overnight with carne asada, beans, tortillas and tequila. And oatmeal. It was 3 weeks since our last visit.

The "camera trapline" was waiting. So we put on our boots, grabbed our gear, and headed for the nearest cam at the bottom of a gulch.

Such a promising set -- a giant fir across a stream bed. The old veteran had lain there for several decades. I knew when I saw it that it was an occasional game crossing. It was made for camera trapping. A bay tree was growing at a suitable distance to anchor the camera. If a bear or puma crossed the log, I'd still get a full body shot.

There was a promising sign, too. Something had dug out the area where I had prepared the scent cocktail-- crab juice stinkum (aged for 7 months) and castoreum.

I disarmed the camera of its bear guard, and noted the number of exposures -- 20. One a day. Not bad.

Oh no. The first picture was a self portrait of two sorry looking codgers. It was taken as we were "walk testing" the camera 3 weeks ago. We looked a little like trophy hunters posing beside a fallen giant.



We clicked through the rest of the pictures.

Bear and puma hadn't found the tempting cocktail, but a juvenile gray fox had. Notice the blocky puppy look. It still has some growing to do.



This fox decided to give the scent cocktail a thorough butt-scrubbing, known in the technical literature as an anal drag. Dogs are good at this sort of thing, and it probably explains the dug out section of the log.



Oh yes. A couple of squirrels visited, and one dashed across the log.



Hmmm. Gray foxes and western gray squirrels. No surprises here.

We shouldered our packs and moved on to the next camera beyond the mouth of the gulch.

(Continued in "Back on the mountain-part 2")