An attempt at subterranean video

I was eager to set the home-brewed video cam (a DXG567) in a burrow so the camera trapping class could see the magical underworld of the mountain beaver or showtl.

In June we revisited the tunnel we used last year, and found that it wasn't feasible.

We couldn't drive a pipe into the hardpan of that tunnel and couldn't mount the camera.

We settled on another tunnel nearby.

Underground set-ups often require special mounts, and since we lacked the necessary equipment we jammed the short pipe mount into the muddy side wall of the tunnel and stabilized the camera with a wooden stake.

It was a sloppy job, but we took a chance.

During the workshop we found that something had uprooted the camera, and when we viewed the video clips we found that the culprit was a bear cub.

Its curiosity satisfied, it left the camera like a tortoise on its back, and it took over 100 video clips of waving tree limbs.

As you can see from the video the camera was positioned too high in the tunnel.

When a camera is underground you can't pre-visualize the picture by looking at the LCD.

Instead of seeing the floor of the tunnel we see a pale fungus above.

The camera took 270 30-second videos, and most of them were of the forest canopy overhead.

Though the underground video clips were poorly framed they show us once again that the mountain beaver shares it tunnel with several other species.

2012 Camera Trapping Workshop

2012 Camera trapping class:
Top row: Greg MacDonald, Hannah Stewart, Patti ten Boom Byrnes, Natalie Fenner, Timothy Fenner, Sam Dailey.
Bottom Row: Joshua Fenner, Bill Wilson, Gwen Dailey, Chris Wemmer, Doug Overman, Lance Milbrand, Caitlin Ott-Conn.  

Thunder showers and an electrical outage got us off to a slow start, but otherwise, the 4th camera trapping workshop at SF State University's Sierra Nevada Field Campus came off well.

Participants of past workshops helped the codger by setting their own cams in the Yuba country a month beforehand, and when the job was done we had a total of 15 in the field.

We were confident we'd have a few photos of Bruin. Large piles of bear scat seemed to litter one meadow where we set two cameras. 

But when we went to collect those cameras we found ourselves in the midst of a logging operation. The bears left us empty-handed.

The field campus provided ample opportunities for camera trapping, and back at camp, however, Patty ten Boom Byrnes captured video of a cub exploring a log. (Sorry I can't upload it.)

Doug Overman with his pre-Galileo
all purpose cam mount.   

Just down river from the tents Bill Wilson added a new species to our Sierra County mammal list -- an incomplete but unmistakable image of a river otter.

Bill Wilson's river otter visited a log jam below camp.

Not far away RandomTruth's cam snapped a bobcat.

Above camp Caitlin Ott-Conn got a photo of an upright showtl -- not a pose commonly caught on our cameras.

The class harvested the usual assemblage of cute rodent pictures.

We added the long-eared chipmunk to the species list -- and you can see here one of its distinguishing marks -- long almost unchipmunkly ears.

The Douglas squirrel or chickaree

Chickarees were the usual early morning and late afternoon camp visitors, but our subterranean video cam once again caught them doing mysterious things in mountain beaver burrows.

Golden mantled ground squirrel.

Golden mantled ground squirrels were already plumping up for hibernation. If the bitter cherries are any indication, there will be heavy mast crop this fall.




Jake's cam also got an image of a Wandering shrew (Sorex vagrans).  See if you can find it.

To celebrate the "strenuous life", we forded the Yuba's north fork and climbed Deadman Scree.  Everyone marveled (I hope) at this geological phenomenon and savored a habitat that cooks in the midday sun but hides an ice age climate in the underworld beneath the rubble.  

On the Deadman talus slope with Lance in video-documention mode.  

We had a couple of camera failures, but still managed to capture some portraits of bushy-tailed wood rats in various stages of development.

A heartfelt thank you to the "alumni" who helped me out on Tuesday night by making presentations about their own camera trapping discoveries.

Jake and Christian compared still pictures with video clips, their message being that if one relies entirely on still pictures one gets snapshots of a much bigger story. Video clips contain much more information. 

Random Truth presented his ideas about close-ups and serendipitous sets with gorgeous examples of woodrat activities in the coastal range and critters from the eastern Sierra.

A serendipitous mountain beaver set -- no "Aplodon,
but a handsome Western tanager (Sam Dailey's photo).

My subterranean cam yielded some chickaree and showtl footage, but a bear cub curtailed that set when it uprooted the cam and turned it on its back. (More about the challenges and risks of subterranean cam-trapping soon.)

I'll be heading back in another week or two -- as soon as I get some special mounts made for some odd sets.

Many thanks to the "alumni" from previous courses, Jake, Christian, Sean, and Random Truth, and to Bill Wilson for assisting with local logistics during the full week.

Last but not least, thanks to the class for enthusiasm and hard work.

One of a series of time lapse photos taken at lunch with a Canon A630. The camera was hacked with the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK). We also demonstrated motion detection.

The Great M. Krishnan

WINDOW TO THE JUNGLE: M. Krishnan’s photography is as acclaimed as are his writings. Photo: M. Krishnan

The Hindu recently published an op-ed celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the great M. Krishnan, the famous Indian wildlife photographer.

M. Krishnan, often pronounced "Yem" Krishnan in South India, was a name I heard frequently there in the 80s and 90s. 

I encountered Krishnan's articles and stunning black and white photos in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 

One of my Indian mentors, the late Dr. V. Krishnamurthy knew Krishnan.

Doc was a Forest Veterinary Surgeon, or elephant vet, for the Tamilnadu Forest Department, and the photographer sometimes leaned on "Doc" for information on the whereabouts of the wild herds.

Dr. V. Krishnamurthy, affectionately known as "Doc" or "Dr. K". 

I used to ask Doc about Krishnan, but I never learned that much, because the mention of Krishnan's name immediately triggered an embarrassing memory from a South Indian prep school for girls.

It was there that Doc was entertaining questions after his lecture about working elephants when the school mistress asked if he was familiar with the photography of the famous wildlife photographer, M. Krishnan.

"Of course, I know him well." said Doc, "A very fine man. And his photos, my Gawd!"

"And did you know," he continued, "that his wife is very helpful in the darkroom?"

Much to Doc's chagrin, the school mistress replied with great composure,

"Dr. Krishnamurthy, all good Indian wives are expected to be helpful in the dark room". 

Doc always ended the story in wild laughter:

"And you won't believe it! Those schoolgirls had a hearty laugh at my expense."

***   ***   ***

Many thanks to James Zacharias, the shola-rover of the Western Ghats, for sending me the article in The Hindu. 

Sullen ravens

Our local ravens, Marco and Polo, have been looking sullen.

This winter and spring they breakfasted at 9:00AM daily with neighbor Richard.

While Richard ate his egg whites in the kitchen, Julia served the birds hard-boiled egg yolks on the back deck.

Richard was enthralled.

"They're intelligent, and they talk to each other".

Marco and Polo were like family.

They periodically checked in during the day and peered into the windows.

Then daylight savings kicked in and suddenly the ravens' breakfast was served an hour late.

The new schedule wasn't to their liking.

Marco and Polo were used to having breakfast only so many hours after sunrise.

They started peering into the window while Richard and Julia were still in bed, and when they got up, the birds watched them through the bathroom window.

Julia found it a little unnerving, but Richard was amused.

The birds remained impatient waiting for breakfast.

"Then I heard this tapping," said Richard, "but it took me a while to find out that they were pecking at the skylights".

It was starting to get like Hitchcock's "Birds", so Richard cut off the family breakfasts.

Cold turkey. It worked.

Marco and Polo gave up their attempts to break through the skylights, and spend a lot less time around the house.

"They still visit," says Richard,  "and they grumble on the phone pole. But they don't hang around like they used to".

Wildlife in the streets of Florence

Many things catch your eye in Italy, but my camera trapper's eye was pleased to encounter wild boar in the streets of Firenze, or as we know it, Florence.

This delicatessen owner proudly displayed taxidermic icons of his specialty -- pork in all of its processed products.

His domestic diorama of medieval piglets at the table proves the thesis of Luigi Barzini's masterpiece of character analysis . . . Italians thrive on spectacle and family.

"Tutti a tavola a mangiare".

Back on the Flume

With the exception of this mole the codger has little to show in the way of natural history.

The reason is that we were in Italy for three weeks, where camera trapping rarely crossed my mind.

But I am getting back into the daily routine of walking the flume and recording natural history.

Thus the partially eaten broad-handed mole.

I thought it was newsworthy, since mammalian predators, unlike raptors, often lose their appetite when they discover that their prey is an unpalatable shrew or mole.

The killer of this mole was hungry enough to make a meal of it. Usually I find the bitten but uneaten carcass. 

I found it the other day, put it in my shirt pocket, and deposited it discreetly in my office.

The redhead managed to find it of course, and I was compelled to photograph it sooner than I had planned.

The flume was practically dry when we left on May 1, which means that PG&E had cut off the water from Butte Creek and the Feather River for maintenance.

They dredged it, and when I got home I found it racing at a pace I have never seen before.

A few days later I watched a limp Bambi tumble surrealistically under the surface, a casualty of misadventure.

So I'm getting back in my groove, and next week you'll see some pictures of urban Italian wildlife.

Lucky shot in the dark

March 21, 2012, 11:35PM

Several camera trappers I know periodically post enviable otter photos on the forums.

They are risk takers. If they weren't, they wouldn't get otter pictures.

If you want to get aquatic mammal or waterfowl photos, you have to stake your camera in or near water, and if high water doesn't baptize your camera there's a good chance that men and boys with fishing rods will regard it as a gift from God.

Since this is the third time I've gotten otter photos, I am pleased.

And that drop of water on the lens over the otter's head? It doesn't bother me that much either.

The location is a seasonal creek that feeds the Mad River. 

A trunk of California bay lies across the mouth of that creek, and it looks like it was designed for a camera trap.

I smeared castoreum and muskrat musk in the moss, and the lures worked their magic.

The otter left one image on a rainy night 13 days later.

No doubt that single flash was enough to curtail its sniffing, and in my mind's eye I see it humping back to the dark water.

A few nights later the river rose and came close to claiming my camera.

Camtrappers lose their cameras to high water, but it doesn't seem to cure them.

Wetlands have a powerful pull.

When the grief wears off, they home-brew another camera, and before long they are staking it in water again.

Had Alfred Lord Tennyson been a camera trapper, he might have penned his famous lines differently: 'T is better to have lost your camera in a flood than never to have water-trapped at all.

I know better, but when it comes to water sets I can't help myself.

I re-set the camera on that log and took my chances once again.