The Starling that Yodeled

 

European Starlings are pretty good mimics, and this short video proves that they do a decent job of imitating coyotes. The location was an abandoned house with a ravens' nest above the back porch, barn owls roosting in the attic, and coyotes denning in the crawl space that was also occupied by mountain cottontails. 

European Starlings seemed to occupy every hole in the wooden walls, and were fond of perching on the ravens' nest. They were already nesting in February, and they photobombed most of the clips that we recorded -- until a red-tailed hawk perched on the camera and tilted it downwards. When the ravens started to nest, the camera was out of commission.

The yodeling starling was the silver lining in this story. There was at least one songster, and maybe more. We couldn't see it or them in the video clips because they performed on the camera or right next to it -- out of view. Thus, the recordings were pretty good, but the songsters performed off-stage.  

 

Back at the coyote den

Here is a new video about the coyote den in Sierra Valley, taken in the winter and spring of 2023/24. This one had a few surprises. 

Codger encounters Highway Patrol

  

 

 

We were driving up the slope from Chico yesterday when I informed my wife that I was going to pull over at the next turn. 

"I think I saw a dead badger here yesterday, and I wanna check it out. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but if IS a badger, it'll be an interesting record."

She is used to this sort of thing.

I slowed down, and when the "badger" came into view I had a momentary decision dilemma. A highway patrol car was parked only a few yards away. The officer was my oldest granddaughter's age, and I could read her mind.

"What the hell is this old bugger up to?"

"No problem officer", says the bugger, "I just wanna check that dead animal for the UC Davis roadkill database".

A moment later I was looking at a black-tailed deer fawn. Boy had I been wrong.

It was not an occasion for a jocular remark about finding free taco meat, so I snapped a photo as an official act.  

It was a close call, but she smiled when I said, "I'll bet this doesn't happen very often."

If you want to know more about California's roadkill database check out the link.

 

Happenings at a coyote den

  

 

Big sister with her mom's brood of nine pups.

In the fall of 2022 our foursome of camera trap enthusiasts set a camera at a coyote den in Sierra Valley. It wasn't an active den at the time, but setting a camera there in October gave the coyotes a few months to adjust to it. We lucked out. The local breeding pair settled into this den to give birth and raise their litter. 

The camera recorded over fifteen hundred clips, and it took a couple of weeks to review them. Our YouTube video below chronicles the main happenings at the den over six months. See it HERE

 

We found a Wickiup!

Several years ago we found a strange structure in a large willow thicket in the northern Sierra Nevada. It looked like a derelict wickiup or wigwam -- one of those Native American dwellings I learned about in grade school. Several dead willows had fortuitously collapsed and formed a natural dome shaped shelter. Which begged the question, did wild animals use this "wickiup" as a lair? 

We set trail cameras there in the fall of 2020 and 2021 and waited until the spring thaw to find out. This movie tells the story.