Mouse mischief

While the codger was in the field a couple weeks ago the redhead was being a dutiful wife cruising around town in our 20 year old Honda and running errands.

When I got home however she reported somewhat emphatically that she was finished with the Honda.

The story unfolded that our beloved Accord had "gone Nascar".

On her way home it revved mightily and bolted like a race horse

She managed to get it into neutral and pulled over with the engine roaring.

Fortunately a number of gentlemen stopped to offer help, and one of them de-jammed the throttle.

"I'm not getting in that thing anymore", she said.

I started the car up expecting a wild horse ride, but it purred like a kitten, and no amount of foot play could get the throttle to jam.

But my assurances didn't change the redhead's mind, so I took the car to our mechanic and explained the problem.

A day later he handed me a plastic bag filled with acorns and stuffing from the car seats, along with a rodent-chewed air filter.

In all likelihood, he said, some mouse debris had temporarily jammed the throttle.

The redhead still wants nothing to do with it.

A nondescript spring

Raccoon hand-jiving for aquatic life

In August I set a camera trap at a shady nondescript spring a few miles from my house.

It's in a steep-sided defile, and it's choked with dead wood and fallen trees.

We looked like poodles wearing galoshes as we high-stepped over the sticks.

The bed of the seepage was filled with rock rubble, and the only place I could drive the stake was into the bank, looking down -- not a preferred vantage point.

I didn't expect any surprises, figuring we could count on lots of gray squirrels, wood rats, and deer mice.

But you never know for sure what'll turn up in a month's time.

The vociferous Douglas squirrel or chickaree

The raccoon was the only carnivore that showed, and it was clearly grubbing for aquatic delectables.

Both chickaree and gray squirrel came to drink.



Deer mice were everywhere and used the sticks as overpasses.

And the wood rats were no shows.

  

Steller jay, spotted towhee, and fox sparrow(? tell me if I'm wrong) tanked up from the same perch

.

What I didn't notice right away was an incidental sally meditating by a riffle.

The peaceful amphibian was the Sierran subspecies of Eschscholtz's salamander (Ensatina eschscholtzii platensis) waiting for a passing insect. 

As the mice skipped about and triggered the camera Sally's image was captured several times on two nights.

She was always there peering into the water. 

  

Then the camera snapped her in a different position.

She actually moved, and I knew she wasn't a gumby toy.

Thanks to JK of Camera Trapping Campus for confirming the Sally ID.

Still looking for bushy-tail

Set 270 in the granite recess 

 It looked like a good place for a bushy-tailed wood rat -- a pile of lodgepole pine cones in a sheltered recess under granite boulders at the top of a 60 foot outcrop. 

I was in red fir forest at an elevation of 6000 feet. They should be around.

Plus, there were rat pellets in there too. At least that's what they looked like.

So even though I had camera trapped the site last year, I wasn't convinced I'd seen everything it might offer -- like bushy-tail.

So I squeezed into the space one more time and made set # 270 in mid-June.

There was fresh bear scat only about 30 feet away.

Maybe the bear would poke its nose into the recess as happened a couple years ago.

But neither bears nor wood rats made a showing.

All I got were pictures of deer mice and shadow chipmunks. 

The search must continue. 

Second night in the Jonah log

When I checked the camera at the Jonah log, I was disappointed to find that the raccoon didn't return. The new arrangement with the camera stuffed back into the "whale's belly" would have given a head-on view of the rascal, and the red-eye setting would have knocked the eye reflection down several notches.

But when I downloaded the pictures I saw that the raccoon had indeed returned. Check out the top of the picture. You can see its legs and feet right of center. Apparently one meal of salted herring was enough.



Not so with the deer mice. They ate more salted herring than peanut butter (that glob in the center of the picture was still there in the morning).

Deliverance

Richard called this morning to report he had captured the mouse. It had been doing the usual subtle but annoying mousie things in his basement. . . like crapping on the workbench and pulling insulation from appliances.

"If you don't mind I'll let it go down in the woods below your house. The same place I let the rattlesnake go."

"Not a problem. Come on down."

I opened the garage door, and a few minutes later I heard Richard on his scooter.

The deer mouse was in the Hyatt-Regency trap Richard made last year. This luxury trap of his own design comes with two rooms, one furnished with peanuts and water, the other with a bed of clean linen. The door quietly locks on a magnetic door jamb, and the expanded metal walls are designed deter the most determined escape artists.



It was a lucky mouse and this was its chance to mend its ways.

Tidak ada, Tuan

"Tidak ada, Tuan." That's Bahasa Indonesia for "There was nothing, Sir". In context, it meant, "No luck today" or "Not a damn thing".

Those were the words of Jaffa, the empty-handed eel fisherman as he passed our riverside camp in northern Sulawesi. He laughed cheerfully about his bad luck. The joke was on him. (May he still ply the waters with good cheer and better luck.)

It was a "Tidak ada" day when I checked the cam at the snag with possibilities. There were 70 pictures, and nearly all of them were dim images of deer mice putzing about in the bottom of the snag. I didn't laugh at my bad luck, but I was grateful that the camera set worked.



The good news was that there were three fuzzy images of what appeared to be a wood rat and a spotted skunk. They were obviously squeezing past the camera when it fired.

The peanut butter had barely been touched. I need to think about another bait, and a better way to secure the camera in place -- like lag bolts and wire. Next time.

I cranked up the flash power, and adjusted the camera's position. I'll let it run another week.

I do have some of Jaffa's patience, but I haven't reached the point where I see the humor in going home empty handed.

A ratty flashback

Ever since discovering the screech owl nest I've been scouting for nest cavities of other owls.

I'm about to give up. With the exception of the fortuitous encounter with the saw-whet owl, none of the tree cavities I've staked out during the past 2 weeks have yielded anything but deer mice and wood rats.

These pictures were from the most active site. A gopher snake was resting quietly at the base of the tree when I arrived. As it parted ways it occurred to me that I might be wasting my time. The snake might have eaten the occupants, but then again, maybe the snake would come back and eat the occupants after I left. Now, that would make a story.

Three days later there were 44 exposures; 14 were of deer mice, and 9 were of a wood rat. The rat and mouse visitations were separated by a couple hours.



The wood rat must have found the quarters a little cramped.



Nonetheless woodrats and deer mice cohabitate in the rats' stick nests. In fact, the coastal subspecies of the California mouse (Peromyscus californicus) was dubbed "parasiticus" because of its habit of living in nests of the dusky-footed wood rat.

The Allegheny woodrat, on the other hand, may not be as mouse-tolerant. If you'll excuse a flashback, I'll explain.

Many years ago a senior colleague of mine at the National Zoo had an uninvited dinner guest in the form of an Allegheny woodrat. This was shortly after Guy had moved into a partially renovated cottage at the zoo's Conservation & Research Center. Aware that the rodent was the previous occupant, and perhaps with a twinge of guilt, Guy offered it some hamburger from his plate.

Guy related the story in my office the next morning. After going to bed that night the rat had lived up to its moniker of "trade rat". It had deposited several pieces of plaster on the floor near the dinner table. (There was apparently a large supply of the relics of the lath and plaster walls under the house.)

Might the rodent become a nuisance? I asked. He didn't think so. The completion of the dry-walls would create a rat-proof boundary.

The dry walls were completed a few days later, but the rat kept showing up at dinnertime and continued delivering its nightly gift. Guy's amusement quickly wore off. I knew the game was over when he came puffing into my office one morning and deposited a bag of broken plaster on my desk. He explained that this vast amount--enough to fill a 2 lb coffee can--was deposited just last night.

It was time to catch the rat.

I live-trapped the rodent, and put it in a large cage of 1/2" hardware cloth in my chicken coop. In due course it made a respectable nest out of shredded feed bags and -- you won't believe it -- its own fecal pellets, which it heaped on top of the nest box.

The rat was particularly fond of animal protein. It tackled chunks of ham fat with the ferocity of a predator, literally throwing itself against the mesh, pulling the scraps through the mesh, and dragging them into its "lair".

Curiously, no mouse was permitted to share its domain. It promptly dispatched trespassing mice, and incorporated the carcasses into the pellet pile, which became a grotesque collection of fly-blown mouse mummies.

The rat thrived for 6 months, and then one night I left the cage open, thinking it might return for a day or two to the familiarity of its old digs.

Apparently it never looked back..

Such are the flashbacks after a bad day on the camera trapline.

Upscale California housing

Does a deer mouse really need this much space?

When I discovered the den last week, there were auspicious signs that the tenant was larger than a mouse or rat. For one thing, there were no spider webs across the entrance. Something big and furry had been swabbing it out. And there was plenty of bunk space upstairs in the apartment. I had high hopes the occupant would be an opossum or a raccoon (which for some strange reason I rarely photograph here), or maybe a spotted skunk.

I staked it out for four days, but the place was so promising that I paid a visit after the second night.

"Well, I'll be . . ." Something had knocked the camera askew.



And not only that . . . it had bitten off the camera trap's "eyebrow" (a PVC ring hot-glued to the case to protect the lens window from rain). Fortunately, none of the three windows was popped or broken.

The anticipation was killing me. Was I about to find an image of a beady ursine eye peering malevolently into the lens?

I opened the camera, flipped the switch to view mode and clicked through the images . . . deer mouse, deer mouse, blank, deer mouse, blank, deer mouse, deer mouse. . . Get the picture? My spirits were rapidly deflating. Then came the last picture.



This was the only visitor who could fill the den, but Ole Stripey was only passing through and had only paused for a sniff. I had to ask myself--was this skunk my camera's abuser? It seemed so out of character. Surely a skunk wouldn't take on the camera with its teeth. I don't think it could have even reached it.

When I got home I found two sharp indentations, 22.6mm apart (as measured with a caliper) in the base of the PVC ring. Now I ask you, can someone tell me the distance between the canines of a striped skunk? A raccoon? (My skull collection is still in a box somewhere in the garage.)

Anyway, two more days yielded more pictures of (yawn) Peromyscus -- both adults and blue-coated juveniles. The cushy upscale den was only a flop house for deer mice, and I am left with an unsolved puzzle.

The snag of fleeting promise

The snag looks promising, wouldnt you agree? As soon as I saw it I thought of small owls or large woodpeckers. So the next day I trundled down the hill with my rucksack filled with sections of a mounting pole, nylon cord, camera, and tool kit. I staked the camera about 6 feet away from the cavity so the sensor would monitor a large area.

It rained that night, but I got one picture. I zoomed in on the LCD, and Whooppeee -- it was a saw-what owl! A new subject to camera trap.



The image was trashed by a drop of water, but I was buoyed by my discovery and moved into action. "Don't bother changing memory sticks", I told myself. "Be patient. In one more day you can savor a whole series of owl shots."

I moved the camera closer to the cavity and messed around for a half hour getting the sensor perfecty aligned. I was feeling the thrill of the camera trapper's chase. Envision the scenario, decide on the optimal angle and distance, double check all the settings, then study the camera's position from all the angles. When I was finished I marched up the hill and felt nice ("like sugar and spice"). The happy prospect of finding a new species does that to you.

The next afternoon I lowered the cam and found . . . WAAHHH! -- 141 pictures! I clicked through a dozen pics of the snag, but the absence of owls didn't worry me. I knew that the nesting screech owls often come and go before the shutter releases--which accounts for empty frames. Then I got home, and found only three images of an animal.



The snag was a high rise for deer mice. Apparently the opening of the nest cavity connected to an "elevator shaft" all the way to the ground. The mice climbed past the nest hole all night long, and triggered the camera on average every minute and 18 seconds.

I consoled myself with the good fortune of getting one picture of a saw-whet owl, and pulled down the camera set. A half hour later I found another promising snag -- a butt-rotted oak with a large den opening at the base. You'll be hearing from me soon.

The thrill is gone

I was thrilled with my first pictures of a spotted skunk over a year ago. The chicken neck I had nailed to a mossy stump was intended for a grey fox, but the taker was the skunk. Its gladiatorial tango with the bait filled the camera's memory card. Six months passed before another spotted skunk encountered the cameras. I was ready for it, and baited it in with the patience of Sherlock. When I had exhausted the staging possibilities I had over two hundred pictures of one jazzed-up skunk climbing trees, disembowelling gopher carcasses, and digging holes to cache the meat.

Now I can't seem to escape the critters. The first time I saw this canyon live oak a diaphanous bobcat appeared momentarily in the crotch like a mirage. A week ago, when I finally laid my hands on squirrel a la camino I prepared the site with loving care. (Can't see the bait, can you?) Then I waited a week. Bobcat was no where to be seen, but Stinkarella was ready for action.

When she was done, her entourage of rodents was there to clean up the scraps.

Escape, recapture, deportation.

It seemed obvious now that the mouse just didn't feel comfortable about squeezing into the Victor mouse trap. I suggested we try the harmless Howard gopher trap, developed by Howdy Howard at UC Davis for studies of pocket gopher ecology. I had a couple in the garage.

It was a triumphant moment the next morning when Richard called to announce that the mouse was in the trap. The squatter was an adult female deer mouse.

One manifestation of Richard's emergence as a field biologist was his wish to mark the mouse. This was in response to my warning about the homing abilities of mice. He wanted to mark its fur with a spot of fingernail polish.

I bagged the mouse without a hitch, gently pinned her, and held her by the nape while Richard dabbed a little nail polish between the silky ears. Then he passed me a half-gallon plastic jar, and I made the second transfer.

However my half turn to the jar's lid was a costly error. A moment later the lid came off and the jar dropped to the workbench. Miss Mousie made her break. She dashed across the bench, went over the edge like a trooper, and disappeared into the cabinets on the far end of the shop. An embarrassing moment.

"Now look what you've done", said Richard like Oliver Hardy.

"I think she might be in the family way, too," I said.

Richard responded, "Oh no, I hope not."

She stayed away the next night, but two nights later she was again in the trap awaiting deportation down the road.

Building a better mousetrap

Last week neighbor Richard asked to borrow a camera trap. An illegal immigrant had taken up residence in his shop. It's droppings were on the work bench, and scattered here and there were bits of insulation. The little squatter was obviously building a first class nest. Though a man of uncommon generosity and hospitality, Richard draws the line at mice in the shop and gophers in the garden. He planned to trap the "wee sleekit mousie" and release it outdoors, but first he wanted to photograph it with my camera trap.

In view of the embarrassing number of times Richard has helped me repair things around the house, I was pleased for a change to be able to offer a lending hand. Truth be told, many biologists are a bit challenged when it comes to practical skills. When somebody like my neighbor -- who can fix and make anything -- wants to tap into your impractical skills and useless knowledge, well it’s a tremendous boost to the ego.

I took the camera trap and sunflower seeds to his shop that afternoon.
"Tonight I just want to get his picture," he said popping a peanut into his mouth.
"Okay, we'll pre-bait the area with peanuts", said I. "We'll leave the sunflower seeds in the trap--they love sunflower seeds--and when we set the trap tomorrow he'll be more than ready for them."
Like a couple of doddering Hollywood directors we arranged the props on the work bench into a mouse-friendly studio.

Richard called me on the phone the next morning--the mouse (a deer mouse) made a brief cameo appearance.



As planned, Richard set the trap that afternoon. The next morning the seeds were gone, but the trap was still open. The mouse had entered the trap several times and eaten the sunflower seeds with impunity.



And that wasn't all. It had jumped in and out of a 5-gallon plastic bucket to get the peanuts at the bottom!

"Now that's quite a feat, I remarked.
Richard took his measuring tape to the bucket, "14 inches high".
"Let's say the mouse is 4 inches long," I mused.
Richard followed through, "He's jumping three and half times his length."

Then he turned to the Victor live trap.
"I don't like this trap. It's too short!"
"This is a Victor live trap, Richard. Victor's been making mousetraps for over 100 years. They're experts in an ancient craft!"
"It's too short", he insisted. "I'm going to cut off the back and hot glue an extension. Then I'm going to move the fulcrum back. That way he has to go further in. This trap's too short!"

And that's exactly what he did.

I emailed him the next morning: "What's the score on the mouse trapping? Any pics last night? Do you need sunflower seed? Batteries? Lemme know."

Richard: "Well, he came back last evening but wouldn't go into the trap with the revisions. The batteries went dead in the camera and I didn't get many pictures."




Chris: "You're hooked! Hah hah! I'll give you a couple of rechargeables in exchange for the dead ones. (We forgot to change them). We should try a different trap too. You need to design the Chaddock Smart-Mouse trap. See you soon."

As a mouse hunter and camera trapper I found Richard's determination highly amusing. He normally reserved this kind of enthusiasm for his various mechanical engineering projects around the house. He was getting hooked. Maybe not hopelessly hooked, like me. But hooked nonetheless.

"You won’t believe it!" I told my wife.
"Believe what?"
"Richard is totally into trapping the mouse, and is designing new mousetraps. He even wants me to make him a camera trap!"
She paused thoughtfully, and said, "His poor wife."

(To be continued)