Long-tailed weasel and rodent cornucopia

A long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata) checks out the castoreum stain left as a scent lure.

Yuba River (North Fork) drainage, Sierra County, California

I wasn't expecting miracles at set 574, but it always seems like a miracle when I camera trap a weasel. Especially a blue-eyed weasel. (Just kidding, folks; those pretty blue peepers are the reflection of the camera's flash from the eye's tapetum lucidum).

This weasel sniffed the castoreum just long enough for a single photo.

The set was under a boulder on a steep slope in red fir forest.  A few de-scaled pine cones identified it as an undercover messhall.

The camera snapped 431 photos in 33 days, but 60% were blank images most probably triggered by fleet-footed rodents.

Long-eared chipmunk (Neotamias quadrimaculatus)

Possibly a brush mouse (Peromyscus boyleii)

Deer mice and long-eared chipmunks accounted for most (=80%) of the wildlife photos.

Long-tailed vole (Microtus longicaudus)
shows its bicolored tail

A bright-eyed long-tailed vole posed nicely for one photo,

Northern flying squirrel, a meat eater. 

and northern flying squirrels left 13 images during three visits.

Chickaree (Tamiasciurus douglasii) 

Chickaree's visited 10 times and left 14 photos.

Even the deer mice sniffed the castoreum.

Every species of mammal left at least a few self portraits while sniffing the irresistible castoreum.

The stuff is a truly broad-spectrum attractant for mammals and indispensable to this camera trapper.


I can't identify the only critter that ignored the scent lure.

The best of three photos of the "mystery chick".

At first I thought it was a scruffy molting wren.

But now I wonder if it's a chick of a blue (sooty) grouse, mountain quail, or even a sora rail?

Early September would seem a bit late for a chick, no?

Any opinions out there?

Carnivorous squirrel

Rocky hauls off a squirrel's head

Sierra County, California; August-September, 2011 -- Camera trap set # 531

Our northern flying squirrels have a refined palate.

Not only do they relish mushrooms, truffles, and tender lichens; they also enjoy well-aged meat -- in this case road-killed western tree squirrel.

At this set amongst red firs on a north slope we expected a bear or a fox, hoped for a marten, and dreamt of a wolverine, but the only takers were the flying squirrel, a chipmunk and an American robin.

With 16 visits over 2 and a half weeks Rocky's persistence paid off.

He succeeded in running off with the head, which we had left lying on the rock.

Then he somehow managed to extract a joint of squirrel from under a slab of rock.

Fifty plus years ago, Robert T. Orr (late curator of birds and mammals at the California Academy of Sciences) told the boy-codger he was surprised to catch flying squirrels on Sonora Pass in meat-baited traps set for martens.

These appealing rodents haven't lost their taste for meat.

Night squirrel

The night squirrel is volant, which means it can glide.

On velvety flaps that hang from its side.

With spatulate tail it dodges the trees,

And lands with a thud that no one can see,

A propeller it needs to gain height, alas.

For skin flaps alone are not up to the task.

So shimmying trunks is all it can do,

To get elevation to volplane anew.