Friendly Foragers

Montana Carl observed that the seasonal creek is a gold mine, and I have to agree.

I've been mining it since April and have been pleased with the performances of the creek critters if not the quality of the footage.

I first encountered the friendly foragers in a series of jpegs taken way down the ravine, and concluded their physical engagement was a fight.

Several weeks later I found footage of their shenanigans at another set and it was pretty clear they were getting physical in a friendly way.

No, not that. They were just playing, as you can see in the video. 

A sore nose

At least two raccoons muddied their paws at the beaver drag, and this one is missing a chunk of its nose.

I am sure it hurts a lot more than those ticks on its ears..

This is clearly a wound and not a runny nose or a natural discoloration and deformity.

Maybe it was acquired in a scrape with another coon, or maybe Br'er Coon's dinner fought back.

By comparison, this young fellow shows what a healthy nose should look like.

A raccoon paradise

There was nothing that stood out about set 443. It was just an opening in the marsh, a soggy mat of cattail roots that channeled water to a creek. 

There are thousands of acres like it in the Sacramento Valley, and it is a veritable raccoon paradise.  

There were little wet raccoons looking somewhat forlorn,

and a rather rotund raccoon that looked like an attraction at a road-side zoo.

They came alone and in groups.

Often they were snapped while gazing into space and grubbing in the water. 

Only a few approached and inspected the camera.

The flash might have triggered a premature exit in one coon, but maybe it was just in a hurry or had an altercation. 

Others attended to matters of personal hygiene.

High water didn't keep them away. 

Soggy coons just shake it off. 

The camera recorded 214 raccoon pictures in 21 days of operation, and by my reckoning there were about 80 visits -- a visit being a group of photos separated by short intervals of time.  

The assumption is that such groups of photos are usually made by the same animal(s).

One usually finds high frequencies of visitation at food sources, and my conclusion is 

that the marsh, and maybe this spot in particular -- seething with fish, amphibians, birds, and invertebrates is a smorgasbord for hungry coons.  

Camera U's final gift

For the camera trapper who has forgotten that creeks flood and that dirt roads can turn into quagmires, or believes that engineered wetlands maintain a constant water level, or thinks he walks under a lucky star . . . well folks, this is what can happen.

Welcome to the Sacramento Valley in December -- December 2, to be exact.

That's when the story began, when yours truly and Random Truth staked Camera U at the edge of a riparian wetland.

I had great expectations. The place was crawling with wildlife.

And sure enough, otters and raccoons left 12 images the very first night.

That's right, river otters -- my first camera-trapped otters on the first night!

The place was hot.

During the next four days Cam U snapped another 19 images.

The raccoons kept coming, and there was the tail-end of an egret and black-tailed deer.

On December 6 the water started to rise, and the promise of set 444 faded rapidly.

In three minutes the water level rose another 4 inches, and at 45 minutes past noon Cam U went under.

Under water it shorted and snapped 50 blurry photos in 3 minutes.

And that was it.

Camera U was finito. 

A couple days ago I removed the precious memory stick and cleaned the sludge from the contacts. 

It still worked, and that's why there is more to this story than the two photos at the beginning and end.

At the moment Camera U is lying in state on my work bench.

When dry it will join other casualties in the camera trap catacombs, which is just a box in the closet.

The death of Big Sally

The doomed California giant salamander, Dicamptodon ensatus, was photographed in the jaws of a raccoon on October 18th, 11:48 PM.

The location on a trail in Marin County wasn't far from a steep year-round creek with prominent step pools.

Habitat: coastal mixed confer and deciduous forest. Lots of lichen and mossy trunks, and the bracing scent of bay laurel.

I regard any species of Dicamptodon with animistic reverence, not just for their size -- up to a foot, but for their bark, bite, and ruggedly handsome good looks. Not to mention their penchant for gobbling banana slugs, small snakes, shrews and mice.

Dicamptodon is an icon of our moist coastal forests and an indicator of watershed health.

The number and biomass of their stream-dwelling larvae often exceed that of salmon. 

But you don't often see adult metamorphosed Dicamptodon unless you get your jollies removing old road culverts, wandering the woods on rainy nights, or dissecting the nests of Pomo tree mice.

Not that encountering Big Sally doesn't happen now and then in other ways. Finding terrestrail Dicamptodon is serendipity for some, and a quest-worthy adventure for others.

In the 1940s a well digger named Dan Coon flushed several of the seldom seen sallies out of springs in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The discovery fueled the imagination of herpers young and old.

We viewed Dicamptodon as a deeply fossorial Orpheus that climbed out of the underworld only in darkness, and perhaps only on rainy nights.

Its nocturnal peregrinations could only be accounted for by a Swiss made circadian clock and a supernatural ability to sense meteorological changes deep in the earth.  

Latter day Dicamptodon enthusiasts however found that its subterranean retreats included root channels and the burrows of fossorial rodents, usually about 3 feet deep.

This was a disappointing finding for old boy naturalists, but ecologist Gary Fellers and coworkers recently bolstered our somewhat diminished awe.

When Point Reyes National Seashore replaced 4 old rusty culverts with bridges for the restoration of salmon streams, biologists were required to stand vigil and assess habitat for the federally protected California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii).

While bearing witness to back hoe and dozer the researchers discovered assemblages of 23 and 27 metamorphosed Dicamptodon under two of the culverts.

Amazing, huh?

And that's not all.

Recent investigations of tree vole nests by Eric Forsman and James Swingle uncovered an old record of a large Dicamptodon cohabiting with a litter of Pomo tree mice -- 2.4 meters above ground.

Okay, back to the raccoon . . .  it probably discovered big sally on the trail after a recent shower.

If Sally bit, barked, thrashed, and released noxious compounds in self defense, the ploys didn't change the fatal course of events.

Those sensitive coon paws probably gave Sally a rude rubbing and rolling before the jaws clamped down.


[Nota Bene: For the sake of names dropping, I might add that Mr. E.S. Dethlefson, Mr Coon's friend who recognized the significance of the flushed salamanders and published the report, lived down the road from my grandparents house in Ben Lomond, California. Here's a bit about my early days there.]


References

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/frpa/iwms/documents/Amphibians/a_coastalgiantsalamander.pdf

Dethlefsen, E.S. 1948. A subterranean nest of the Pacific giant salamander, Dicamptodon ensatus (Escholtz). Wasmann Collector, 7(3):81-84. 

Fellers, G.M., L.L. Wood, S. Carlisle, and D. Pratt. 2010. Unusual subterranean aggregations of the Califormia giant salamander, Dicamptodon ensatus.  Herpetological Conservation and Biology, 5(1):149-154.

Forsman, E.D. and J.K. Swingle. 2007. Use of arboreal nests of tree voles (Arborimus spp.) by amphibians. Herpetological Conservation and Biology, 2(2):113-118.

A good trail

Coyote came down the trail at 7:07AM on March 29

We're in Marin County, and this shady trail gave me a good feeling.

It follows the contours of a steep slope, winding around the bulges and into the drainages, and all the way it climbs gradually.

Here and there the chopped duff shows where animals arrive or leave it for a steeper route to some unknown destination.

There was animal scat too.

So, I set the camera in front of a Douglas fir looking up the path, and a month later the camera confirmed my hunch.

There were 96 pictures of mammals and birds on the memory stick.


Black-tailed deer accounted for 30% of the animal pictures.

The bucks were wearing velvet antlers that looked like fuzzy bratwursts.

Deer mice took second place among mammals (22%).


There was lots of bird activity .

Hermit thrushes were on the trail at dawn or late afternoon.

Together with varied thrushes they were the most frequent avian users (28%), but scrub and Steller jays, a robin and dark-eyed juncos also visited.


Only one raccoon made an appearance,


but bobcats showed up four times.

All were moving up the trail, meaning none faced the camera. (I put out a second camera for the next go-around, and aimed it down the trail.)


And here's the only other coyote picture -- following a shower at 5:15 in the morning.

I had great hope for a camera I set at a coyote latrine about a quarter mile away, but the camera had an electrical short.

After I left that evening, it took 400 photos in two and a half hours -- filling the memory stick. A couple of moths were the only animals photographed.

Coast live oak with raccoon

The old coast live oak in Marin County had possibilities. It was picturesque and had low lying limbs.



I hid the camera in a toyon, and aimed it along a low limb that even a three-legged critter could climb. A few dabs of castoreum a drop of civetone. Then some toyon leaves on the camera, and it was ready.



I got only 5 pictures over 43 days, and all were of raccoons. The first appearance was 2 weeks after I made the set.



Nineteen days later (March 9) there were two visits. A pair showed up earlier in the evening, and a few hours later a singleton climbed the limb to check the scent.



I had expected a ringtail (Bassariscus astutus) . A few years ago, one had been sighted not far from here.

I guess I can't complain. I got a "ringtail", just the wrong species.

More plank walkers

A raccoon and her family started to cross the plank, but changed their minds and retreated. Another raccoon preferred the creekbed.

Gray foxes were undaunted by the camera. They were in fourteen out of 38 photos at the site.



A pair of them explored the creek bed.



Only one possum was seen scuttling up the trail, barely visible in the distance. I suspect it arrived via the creekbed rather than the plank.

Almost all of the deer pictures were of creek crossers.



Only this buck might have walked the plank.

Fernandez Spring

Fernandez Spring was a clear shallow pool in the shade of a spreading valley oak. It was the only spring where I could set the camera for 24 hr shooting while I was in San Luis Obispo County. The reason is that passive infra-red sensors are easily tricked by puffs of warm air, moving vegetation, and dappled sunlight. The resulting false triggers can rapidly fill a memory stick with an exhaustive record of passing shadows. I didn't have to worry about that here at this shady spring.

The spring was about 50 yards from the water trough mentioned in the previous post, but it was a far more popular stop for thirsty animals. Here the camera's batteries lasted for 24 days, and 231 of 310 photos were of animals (a success rate of 75%). I could identify 16 species, but 2 additional birds remain a mystery.

A bobcat visited the site twice and both times it lingered. On this visit I got 6 pictures of it looking rather bored. It stayed for 34 minutes, probably waiting for birds.



It was too late. A covey of 22 half grown valley quail (and a flash-lit moth) had passed through 40 minutes earlier.



The spring was probably a productive hunting ground for the cat. Twelve species of birds visited to drink and bathe, including a Cooper's hawk.



One night a screech owl flew in for a bath a half hour before midnight.



The raccoon dabbled in the spring for a minute and half before going to the water trough.

Who drinks from the trough?

The answer to the question is not many. Of course I only caught part of the action, because the camera was set for night time photos only.

The pigs came and went. I am sure they could learn to stand up at the trough, but they were drinking from the spring about 50 yards away.

The most active user was this raccoon.



It fished there on several nights, and was quite thorough about it.



The menu was limited -- dragonfly nymphs, smaller insect larvae for sure, together with tadpoles and perhaps a few frogs, though we didn't see any.

Users of the log bridge

We're back on the mountain in Napa county.

Three more species round out the list of users of the log bridge. Previously, we had striped skunk, gray fox, and Steller's jay. Though recorded from the area, the pileated woodpecker was an unexpected treat.

The log seemed to be off the bear's beaten track, though not far from the camera set at the puma scat.



And a raccoon never comes as a surprise.