The log botherers

The camera at set 340 managed to take 100 images before the mysterious impostor filched the batteries 3 weeks into the venture.

But let's forget the impostor and talk about the others who visited our set.

A handsome Heermann's kangaroo rat was an active visitor.

It even ventured into the log.

Of course there were deer mice,

 and a fit looking cottontail also explored the inner architecture,

which just proves something we already knew -- fallen logs are attractive features to small mammals.

But in addition to the log's natural allure, some bumbling biologists had stuffed a perforated can of cat food down a ground squirrel burrow right behind that grass.

This might have attracted a bobcat with nicked ears,

that waited patiently for that smelly can or a small mammal to appear.

A few days later our old friend with the crumpled ear showed up with those jade cat eyes.

He's a poker-faced veteran of the range. 

And we know he's an old rambler, because this is two miles from the hilltop where we clicked him last fall. 

With a range that large the chances are good that this cat is a male. 

The little guys who also show up

These are pictures of "incidentals", the little guys who also show up. Aplodon was my target species at this set, but there were several passersby in the vicinity of the rodent's burrow. I tentatively identified the creature above as the water shrew (Sorex palustris), and the brown-colored one below, if you can see it, I am tagging as the vagrant shrew (Sorex vagrans). As I mentioned though in the workshop summary (a couple posts back), these are tentative identifications.



Three of us photographed long-tailed voles (Microtus longicaudis). They were all filmed moving about day and night in the alder thicket.



Of the birds, this yellow-rumped warbler is unmistakable. The other photo of it revealed fewer diagnostic features.



Though wood rat pellets and cached cones were abundant in the granite recess of the following camera set, the mouse was the only visitor. It could be a North American deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) or a brush mouse (Peromyscus boylii). Based on coloration (not well rendered here) I am guessing it's the latter. It was photographed at 6000 ft on a large cliff face near Yuba Pass.