Winter weasel without snow

I finally got it:  I cam-trapped a weasel in its dashing white winter camo.

But as you’ve noticed, it’s sticking out like a sore thumb because there’s no snow 2 feet underground where the picture was taken.

I’ve wanted that photo since I learned that weasels are frequent but uninvited guests in mountain beaver tunnels.     

Wouldn’t it be cool to show a winter weasel without the benefit of its winter backdrop of snow?

How do you get that picture?

You can nature-fake it – just live trap a weasel (no small feat) and photograph it on soil and leaf litter set in a cage.

Or you can set a camera in a mountain beaver burrow.

But there’s risk and a technical challenge to leaving a camera underground in a rodent burrow for half a year.  

You have to supplement the camera’s normal battery power so it can take flash photos for 6 months. (I wired 4 external batteries -- 2 D and 2 C cells -- to the camera for back up power, and used 2 9-volt batteries to power the controller.)

And you have to retrieve your camera before spring snowmelt floods the burrow and drowns the camera or buries it in silt.

I was ready to deploy in the fall of 2013, but procrastinated, and the snow shut me out that winter.  

I procrastinated again in 2014, but it was a drought year, and I got away with setting the camera in early November.

Disappointment came the following May when I discovered the batteries died 45 days into the bargain and before any weasel made an appearance.  Murphy’s Law.  

Last winter I had the camera in the ground on October 7^th. 

The camera had been out 8 months when I drove to the site a couple weeks ago with Bill and Diane Wilson. 

Our timing seemed okay. The snow was gone at 6000 feet, and the Forest Service road was dry.  The only thing that was worrisome was the Yuba River, which was already roaring from snowmelt.

At 7000 feet snowdrifts blocked the road.   

“Wait here Bill, I think it’s within walking distance.”

I skirted the drifts on the road, but it was solid snow at the creek, which was a choppy gusher.

This was not a good sign because the camera was in an alder thicket on a silt bench a few yards from the creek and only a few feet above water in summer.

A few minutes later I found the alder thicket; normally 8-15 feet high, it was flattened by snowpack.  

I’m standing there thinking it would take a team with shovels and spuds to expose the camera, when I see a bare spot and a piece of weathered plywood.

It was the cover over the tunnel and camera.

I tugged it free like a crazed treasure hunter . . . and “Damn (expletives deleted)!”

The tunnel was flooded.

I yanked the stake free with the camera attached . . . and “DAMN! (more expletives deleted)!”  

Rust-colored water drained from the camera case.

I pulled the precious SD card, dried it, and headed back to the car with the dripping camera trap.

At San Francisco State University’s field campus we downloaded the file.  

The camera took 106 photos before unseasonal rain flooded the burrow at the end of January.

I was resigned to another failure as we scrolled through blank exposures and occasional pictures of vole, shrew, or chickaree.

Then the snow-white weasel appeared. On January 7^th. One image.

It was the last animal picture on the card.

Three weeks before the flood that ruined the camera.

     

Revenge of the Zen-walkers

A "Gotcha moment".

Ah yes, I remember this camera trap fondly and chuckle. 

It was set # 450, which means nothing to you and everything to me. 

It was poorly hidden in a clump of ferns on a cut bank in Marin County, a so-called "trail set".

Now trail sets are not particularly imaginative, and they are often easily detected, but this one almost always caught its quarry off guard.  

Local wildlife seemed oblivious until the camera rudely announced its presence with 4 consecutive flashes.

And among the wildlife that used this lovely trail were three sporting ladies.

They were regulars who would pass the camera Indian-file, just like black-tailed deer.

They could only reach the camera trap after a long aerobic climb of several hundred feet.

Then they would mount a small rise on the trail, descend a few steps, and in the silent splendor of giant ferns, mossy trunks, and stately redwoods -- blink blink blink -- three little red-eye flashes would intrude upon their reverie.

The big flash came a split second later, capturing their priceless reactions.

  

It was as if a vulgar little troll jumped out of the fern and said "BOO"! 

After that rude introduction you would think these good-natured ladies wouldn't forget the troll, but on their next hike the little bugger caught them off guard once again.

I can only surmise that the peaceful exhilaration of their outing lulled them in a hiker's trance or perhaps a Zen-like frame of mind.

Even the Codger had a few Zen moments upon reaching the summit of the trail, most likely a consequence of anoxia.

Another  "Gotcha moment".

Time passed, and Charlotte spun her web over the camera, but the little troll still jumped out and flashed when the ladies passed.  

By now I sensed that the ladies were growing a little tired of the troll's merry pranks.

It was a turning point in the game, but I didn't know it.

The ladies were cooking up a scheme to outsmart the troll on their next outing.

A few days later they circumvented the troll's electronic eye with the stealth of commandos and thrust their surprise in its homely face.    

I think they were making a statement.

"You want wildlife?  You want wildlife? Here it is, you sick little troll. Take all the pictures you want,  and leave us alone".

Look carefully, good readers.

The lady in the shadows seemed to be intoning a curse.  

And the other lady got up close and personal.

I think I get the message.

Ladies, wherever you are, I want you to know the troll greatly enjoyed those fleeting interactions.

I know that your initial amusement, if any, was short-lived, but at least you treated the little bugger much better than bears or the rowdies who steal trail cameras.

Rest assured that the last laugh was on the troll and the Codger himself.

Postscript: The Codger hopes to meet the ladies one of these days and hike that trail for old time's sake. He promises to leave the troll home.  (And readers should know that these good ladies gave permission to use their images through an intermediary and mutual friend.)

Another Arboreal Adventure and PSA Syndrome

Sonoma tree vole diorama, Photographer Gabriel Moulin,
courtesy California Academy of Sciences Archives. 

Fifty years ago the red tree mouse diorama at the California Academy of Sciences looked like this*. 

Periodically I would visit and stand there spellbound.  

Like the mossy gym sock exhibited in the same hall, the tree mouse diorama featured an intriguing nest with red-haired mice disporting themselves like sugar plum fairies.

I knew that some day I would find one of those nests. I was certain that I would know one when I saw it. 

Little did I know a half century stood between my youthful ambition and its realization, but faithful readers of this blog already know the codger encountered his first red tree vole a couple months ago.  

It was a fleeting engagement and not particularly satisfying.

The nest was a pathetic example of mouse work, a paltry accumulation of fir needles balanced over a recess in the trunk, and the resident's activities were usually out of the camera's view.  

I needed to find a brood nest like the one above -- an overstuffed cushion of fur needles, a spacious stage where a mother vole performs her nocturnal ritual and little voles play in the moonlight.

A week ago we resumed the search and wandered the logging roads with slack-jaws and craned necks looking like crazed birders.      

Nests we found, and some were even in climbable trees, but all were beyond reach unless you had a cherry picker or a very well-trained monkey.

They looked like tree vole nests, but only a fool
or a monkey would climb them to find out.

The afternoon was wearing on and I was ready to admit defeat when we wandered off the road into a young stand of Douglas fir, and there it was about 35 feet above us --  a messy tangle of sticks and fir needles right next to the trunk. 

Fresh clippings and resin ducts told us the nest was occupied.

It was an excellent climbing tree with whorls of reasonably stout limbs -- living limbs mind you, not the rotten ones so common on older trees. Terry fetched the ladder while I admired the tree and yammered about its suitability.

My first ascent convinced me that the climbing path needed a haircut. So dense were the springy wire-like twigs that I felt like a Lilliputian climbing a wire chimney brush.

That done, I drilled a hole in the limb and screwed in a lag bolt mount.

The camera was a HD video cam -- a DXG 567v with a small IR array home-brewed by the talented camera hacker "EgbertDavis" .

I dropped the camera stem into the mount, adjusted the camera angle, opened the back one last time, and powered it up.

Having tested the camera on wood rats last fall, I knew the infra-red illumination wouldn't bleach the subjects at close range.

Terry and I made 5 camera trap sets that day, but this was the set that haunted my reverie as I drove up the Trinity River Canyon on my way home.

Then the car radio lost its reception and disturbing thoughts started to seep in.

Had I tightened the wing nut enough to maintain the camera angle? Would the wind buffet the camera, cause false triggers, and fill the SD card with useless footage? And how long would the batteries last?

Two nights later a big storm blew in off the Pacific.

I emailed Terry: "We've been getting heavy winds and rain, and I'm a little worried about that cam in the Doug fir. Hopefully it is sitting tight".

"We had wind gusts up to 40 mph", he answered "and last night got a big hail storm which lasted about 10 minutes".

I envisioned the fir's limbs whipping furiously in the storm, and then I saw the distressing aftermath -- a heap of broken boughs and my DXG lying on the ground.

Manic expectation, doubt, worry, disillusion, chagrin, and finally the blues -- this is the emotional roller-coaster called camera trapping.

As for the haunting doubt and worry -- I guess you can call it Post-Set-Anxiety Syndrome.

+++++    +++++     +++++

*/ Of course, the wire mesh and support structure wasn't visible; the photo must have been taken when they demolished the exhibit.

A dry wash channel set

Dry washes are the country roads of four-footed arid land drifters, and good places to set camera traps.

They're fickle places, though, especially in winter, when a rumbling wash of mud, gravel, and cobbles can sweep your beloved cam away. Forever.

The channel in the rock sediments seen here is a promising but unusual feature.

We all walked right on through the gap, realized its uniqueness, and got a little jazzed about it.

Practically every mammal bigger than a rat will be obliged to pass through that channel, just as we did.

Take a look at the top of the page again, and you'll see a couple of rocks at the bottom of the channel. 

There's a smelly treat under that stone, so we're expecting passersby to pause for a sniff before resuming their journeys.

That will give the camera time to capture their photo IDs. 

The risky business of stealth camming

"Quiet!" I growled as Fred looked in the direction of an approaching pickup truck.

We weren't well hidden, but the last thing I wanted was my barking dog to give us away to some beer guzzling yokels plying the roads in search of mindless diversion.

We were lurking in the bosom of a big old outcrop 60 feet above a county road and I had almost finished setting the camera.

By now you all know that camera trapping is by economic necessity a clandestine activity.

Camera trappers can get a little weird where people pursue outdoor recreation year round or grow exotic plants in the woods.

Sometimes they develop peculiar tics, or just get paranoid.

This was a risky place and yes, I was feeling a little paranoid.

It was far too close to a road that attracted that subset of the population that tosses beer cans out the car window.

But I had succumbed to the temptation of ringtail country with its voluptuous outcrops and jutting crags.

For three years I had resisted the temptation, but when I scoped it out on Google Earth and saw those bounteous rocks peeking out from a quilt work of chaparral and oak woodland -- I abandoned my normal caution and made a plan.

I would set three cams along that stretch of road before I left for the trip to Burma.

I parked about a half mile away, donned my rucksack, leashed the dog, and walked nonchalantly down the road.

A muddy jeep roared by and spattered us with brown water.

A minute later I spied the departure point.

The "coast was clear".

I crossed the road, unleashed Fred, scrambled up the bank and grabbed a branch of oak.

My footing gave way as Fred disappeared into the undergrowth.

I was dangling on the cut back like a rabbit in a pole snare, and if anyone came to my rescue, I'd have to say it had happened as I was looking for a place to pee.

I managed to crab my way up and crawled into the thicket.



In the chaparral I felt safely incognito and soon found there were several outcrops hidden from Google's piercing eyes.

Though close to the road one mossy rock with nooks and crannies looked promising.

Mounting the camera was the problem.

Only one small tree was suitably placed, but it was bent back, and no matter how tightly I cinched the cable the camera wobbled.

I started over, sawed a shallow kerf in the trunk, and hacked a plane surface with my trusty kukri.  

The camera was secure and seemed to be at an optimal angle.

That's when the pickup passed.

I dabbed the rock cavities with castoreum and packed my bag.

Two months passed before we climbed the cut bank again, but that story's for next time.

Badger Head Gulch

In a few days we'll look at the comings and goings in Badger Head Gulch, but first some background.

To begin with, there is no Badger Head Gulch.

We named it for poor Yorick, above, who met his untimely demise here last spring.

The gulch is actually the headwaters of Saltos Canyon, which at this point is just a steep-walled erosion gully of compacted sand, sandstone and shale rubble.

Most of the year it's a dry dusty gash in the Caliente Range with a narrow game trail tracing it length through occasional thickets of saltbush, mulefat, and alkali goldenbush.

In the winter it drains a brown slurry of outwash into the much larger Saltos Canyon.

There are many places like it on the ranch, and we explored it on August 10th for camera trapping.

We started at the jeep track (lower left) and ended at the fork "set 392" (upper right).

The banks were riddled with burrows of all sizes ---  a good sign -- and as we ascended the gulch we noticed that the steepening walls were closing in on us.

Not a place to find yourself in a flash flood.

Right off we encountered mementos mori --

a tarantula being eaten by Lilliputians

a raven who will never again quork nevermore

a half-finished meal of McRattlesnake

and the severed and sun-cured head of Yorick -- the brain case and its nutritious contents munched away.

As the walls of the gulch boxed us in I realized this was the perfect place for predatory ambuscade.

A puma could leap down from the rim in one or two bounds and a coyote could surprise prey on a bend in the trail.

And while a fleeing jackrabbit might be able to scale the walls of that gulch, it would be a risky move for a black-tailed deer fleeing a puma.

The soil was too loose . . . better to run like hell down the arroyo, if the cat didn't get you first.

It was late afternoon when our hot and weary team arrived at a fork in the gulch -- a natural funnel and a good place for the camera.

There we made set 392.

Leaping Lupus was well trained

In case you haven't heard, the judges of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition disqualified the winner.

They concluded the stunning image of the jumping wolf was nature faked.

It seems the wolf was tame and as cooperative as Lassie.

I must say that I was a little doubtful about the photograph's pleasant and orderly setting.

It looked more like a museum diorama than real wolf habitat.

A photographer would have a very long wait --we're talking geological time -- for a wild wolf to jump such a fence.

However, I contend that if you know your subject and the terrain -- and use a camera trap -- such a photo wouldn't be impossible to take.

Technically, it isn't hard to get a photo of a leaping mammal.

The hard part is finding a trail used by wolves that crosses a fence.

Wildlife take the path of least resistance unless pressed, and they'll often creep under a fence if they can.

Here in the states wildlife do jump fences made of posts and barbed wire, and the crossing point is usually where the top strand was cut or broken by a falling tree limb.

Tumbled down sections of stone fences also become crossings marked by well worn paths and hoof-chopped earth.

Here's what the codger would do.

I'd try to determine the usual direction of animal movement -- e.g. downhill on a slope, and then I'd adjust and test the camera set by getting my dog to jump the fence.

Fred could do it if the fence wasn't too high.

Where legal, an attractant -- scent, bait or sound could be used to increase the chances of a photo.

Then I'd just wait for the picture.

There's a good chance several contest deadlines will have come and gone before getting the desired picture, and we could be talking geological time again.

But in my experience the wait wouldn't be that long.

The desired photo would highlight the wrong end of the animal, which would be a poacher with a large butt in camo.

Going within

Other than troglodytes and dumb camera trappers one never knows what goes into places like this.

But Craig, ever hopeful of documenting the astute bassarisk (otherwise known as the ringtail), thought this large collapsing outcrop had possibilities.

So did Randontruth and yours truly.

It was also an opportunity to use the expansion post.

In truth, the expansion post was our only hope for fixing the camera at the back of the recess.

It was all solid rock.

But extending the screw while reclining in rat doodoo was not a yoga position I would recommend, and the 5 minute wrist workout convinced me I really didn't want lower arms like Popeye, and the design of the expansion post is flawed.

Randomtruth, who was busy taking these pictures (thanks, mann), knew right away that an effective expansion post should be capable of quickly extending to the desired length, and anchoring tightly in place with a few twists of the screw.

Hey, live and learn.

When we were finished close to an hour later, the set looked like this.

Next week you'll see what showed up.

Flat Top was a no go

"Can we get to that hill on the left?"

Craig said there was a jeep trail to the north side, so we headed for it.

"That'd make a good story", I mused. "Who goes to the top of the mountain?"

I envisioned a coyote or puma looking across the landscape.

It was an easy climb to the top. We scared up a few cottontails and noted numerous kangaroo rat and pocket mouse burrows.

Then we set a camera and paused to take in the scenery.

Some interesting features will be worth exploring in the future. 

Toward Soda Lake was kit fox habitat.

There were game trails, gullies, large burrows, and springs.

Back at the ranch, we told Bob, the Director, about the hill.

"Yeah, that's Flat Top, one of the the elk hunters' favorite lookouts."

"Better pull the cam", he advised. "I can't guarantee someone won't see it and walk off with it."

No one had found it when Craig pulled it a week later.

It hadn't taken a single picture.

Gully cams -- a self portrait

Leaving with high hope, an unintentional self portrait.

Self portraits are inevitable when your controller's dip switches are set to shoot around the clock. 

(It doesn't happen when the camera is set to take night photos -- unless you work at night.)

So, unless you sneak away or creep up to your camera trap there's a good chance it will take your picture.

I regard my own self portraits as collateral damage and usually delete them, but this one of Craig retreating from set 301 almost has painterly qualities. 

As he walked away the camera took a sequence of 14 pictures, and this one just stood out.

A couple new sets

Set 294, an arroyo in Carrizo Canyon, San Luis Obispo County

Chimineas Ranch, San Luis Obispo County

Checking and re-setting cameras took a full day.

The next day, August 19, we plied the back country roads by pickup to find areas for new sets. 

The arroyo (set 294) was bordered by a dense thicket on one side and a cliff on the other. 

A deep channel upstream dumps seasonal precipitation into the creek from time to time, but it may also serve as a travel route for wildlife.

This is a project of California Department of Fish & Game, and the department was the beneficiary of a large supply of canned mackerel that was contaminated with sand and deemed unsuitable for human consumption. 

The Department is making good use of the mackerel as bait to trap problem bears for relocation and also gave us a supply for our camera trapping survey at Chimineas. 

We punctured a can for this set and wired it to a limb over the arroyo, and we also used apple and almond scent lures. 

The set below is another shallow sandstone cave.

Fred took shelter there; the heat was really getting to the poor guy. 

When we got back to the car I had to restrain him from running up the hill to the cave again.

This cave was on a bluff near the top of a steep sandhill, and off the main chamber were a couple of narrow offshoots.

Okay, it doesn't look promising compared to the other cave and rock recess, but maybe something visits the place now and then for the view if offers of the countryside. 

We left a little castoreum there as a scent lure.

Maybe we'll get some surprises on the next go around.  

 
 

Taking a chance at Poison Water

The finished camera trap set at Poison Water

It looks like a flooded mine shaft dug by Lilliputians.

Ranchers around here excavated many of the springs, perhaps to increase flow or to make a pool.   

That's what they did at Poison Water Spring, and then they boarded it up.

The story has it that a disgruntled cattleman poisoned the spring to even the score with a competitor.

Boards truss the ceiling and keep the cattle from using it as a toilet, but perhaps the original reason was to make it off limits. 

Craig had already camera trapped here, and found the usual cast of characters.

 

This time we decided to put the camera inside the spring to get a bartender's view of the drinkers. 

Since daytime visitors, like lots of quail filled his camera's memory, we set the cam for night pictures only. 

It took some time to find a crack in the bedrock, but we finally managed to drive in a cut off t-post.

We were taking a chance, but it didn't look like anything as dumb as a camera trapper would venture into the deeper water. 

Mystery mammal

This was set # 254, a promising site in Marin County where fog blows in from Bolinas Lagoon. 

I know bobcat kittens padded this trail, and I know a coyote dropped a few dog logs right where the mystery creature hunkered. 

But the cam always had a problem.

This time the flash went out. 

24 images were black.

Three looked like this, and only this one showed an animal. 

It was 6:18 in the morning when the mystery mammal paused to sniff.

Anyone want to guess what it it? 

Coyote . . . raccoon . . . wolverine . . .  German shepherd . . . or just a large squirrel? 

Camera trap pictures can be puzzling -- read on . . . here.

 

Proof of the Camera Trap Fairy

There's always a chance that a branch will fall in front of your trail camera and botch the pictures.

Snow can bury your camera for months. Then you won't get any pictures to botch.

In the summer I've had vegetation grow up in front of cameras.

It doesn't take long, but if you wait 4-6 weeks to check your cam, you might find it perfectly camouflaged but still clicking away.

The lens focusses on the plants so you never know what triggered the pictures.



At this set I cleared the foreground of fallen limbs, but twigs dropped over the camera a couple weeks after I left and gave me pictures like the one above.

This was the first time a someone other than yours truly walked by and trimmed the twigs out of view.

Which proves there IS a camera trap fairy.


blac

El Paso de las Pumas

[Whatever they are, they pass under this log]

Okay, I'm stretching the facts.  At this point in time, El Paso de las Pumas is a fanciful fabrication. 

But when I found the area I got a very good feeling.

Not because it leads to a creek, but because it's kind of a trunk road that receives trails from an adjacent catchment and ridge and leads to numerous trails beyond the creek. 

It's actually a pass between a cliff and a steep slope choked with timber and windfalls.

[The cam in a Pelican 1060 case with bear guard.]

I didn't have a camera mount that would work on that horizontal log.

I needed an adjustable mount that would allow me to point the camera down and to the side -- looking down the trail.

Greystoke on Homebrew Trail Camera Chat provided the design and my neighbor Richard provided parts and welding skills.

[We made mounts for 3 cameras -- 

each adjustable in vertical and horizontal planes, 

with a lag bolt for attachment]

I set a camera there last weekend, and in a few weeks I'll know if el Paso has been stamped by pumas and bears, or just heavy-footed gray foxes.

[A view down the trail -- not picturesque, 

but hopefully a well-used beat of large carnivores.]