Beaver Spice

"Anyone care for a beaver-flavored Pepparkakor?"

Readers of this blog are well aware that when it comes to mammalian scent the codger has a discerning nose.

A recurrent theme in my summer workshop is that camera trappers who disdain scent as an attractant miss opportunities to pixelate their quarry.

So I was terribly gruntled this afternoon when Chas Clifton sent me a link to an article titled Beaver Butt Secretion Good for Baking. Thanks again, Chas.

And don't skip the remarks of the wussified commentators. I am sure none has seen a beaver's butt, let alone sniffed one.

I vouch for the captivating power of beaver castor.

That greasy paste is a rich mixture of various plant phenols, including molecular relatives of vanilla, and it's as close to a universal mammalian attractant as it gets.

We have a scent sniffing exercise after my evening lecture on olfactory attractants.

The class is understandably hesitant -- "Hey man, this is weird" -- so I tell them it's "very California", like wine tasting and aroma therapy.

Then I open a jar of Mud Road, take a deep whiff, and roll my eyes. 

Soon the jars are moving around the table, and when the participants aren't gagging their facial expressions are precious.

But with Castoreum it's different.

It's hard to get certain participants to surrender that spicy smelling jar to their classmates.

They just keep sniffing with this dreamy look, and of course everyone wants to sample it.     

So I'm not surprised that the Swedes have approved castoreum as a cooking ingredient.

I hope The Local follows up on the article, because I want to know how many Swedish grannies will be inspired to add castoreum to their pepparkakor.

I know I'll never get the redhead to do it.

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?