Patch Update # 4

The lower deer trail is getting regular wildlife traffic now, which is quite a change from last summer and fall when it seemed to be a dead zone.

Thirty photos were taken since my last update on the winter solstice. Three of these were blanks, i.e., the camera fired after the animal moved out of the frame. That's an acceptable success rate of 90%.

Squirrels, a deer mouse and a flock of turkeys walked past the camera. The photos weren't worth showing.

The gray fox spent 3 minutes sniffing about the trail (8 pictures), and the last picture of the series is the alert stance at the top of this page.



Three hours later and just before dawn this fox or its lookalike cocked its leg and pissed on the base of the tree. This was 12 days after the dog marked the same spot, but I suspect it was in response to some outrageously stinky Billingsley's Flat Rock Predator Bait I had dabbed at the base of the tree and a light garnish of dry catnip.



Two days later at 6:26 in the morning the fox indulged in a brief frenzy of neck rubbing on the same spot.



A spotted skunk also visited the site on three different nights and sniffed at the predator lure. Though the neck fur of these little charmers sometimes has a yellowish tint, I have never caught them in the act of "getting it on".



What I want to know is what happened to the bobcat? Now there's a species that plays hard to get.

The call of smelly crab

Not back to the normal codgerly routine yet, but thought this frame was worth posting. Though I got 43 pictures in two nights, none captured foxiness as well as I would have liked.

What the picture shows is that gray fox is powerfully attracted to smelly old crab shells. It came to the lure the first night. If I had baited the site with only a mouse or a chicken neck, I probably would have waited several days for the fox to show.

By the way, here you can see the volcanc capstone that is so prevalent in this area. The gray fox is quite at home here, and next to striped skunks is my most frequent camera trap visitor.

Solstice patch visitors

I couldn't take Terrierman's winter's solstice advice today, because I don't have a dog.

Yet something magical happened. Dogs joined me in my morning camera trap beat. I didn't know I had company until I switched on the camera and viewed the images. I don't know whose dogs they are; I've never seen them before.

But there they were, a few minutes ahead of me on the trail, pissing on my scent patch.

Patch Update # 2

Checked the patch today, and found that a puma made an appearance at 9:54 in the morning 2 days after Thanksgiving. That was 4 days after I changed the batteries and memory stick. This was the only picture.

I didn't refresh the scent patch, and evidently it didn't hold much interest. What a difference from back in July, April, and May. If she had paused to sniff it I should gotten one full body shot.

She looks a little thin, and maybe that explains why she's on the prowl at this time of day. So, camera trapping season on pumas has officially opened.

Oh, yes, a few turkeys walked by too.

Scent Patch update

The gray fox visited the patch twice before Thanksgiving. (I discovered that the camera at the other patch is broken.) On both occasions it did its usual neck rubbing thing. I guess I expected it to rub against the patch like a cat, but this didn't happen. It did the usual canid neck sliding behavior with the hindquarters up. We've seen this before.



I suppose it's possible that the scent anointing behavior of the gray fox is less flexible than that of cats, and this raises questions of classical ethology that still fascinate me.

Is the gray fox unable to anoint itself with smelly scents if they are not on the ground?

Obviously this fox took the time to sniff and probably lick the scent patch, but there was no picture of it rubbing against the patch. Instead, it rubbed its neck on the ground where there was no scent.

This is a good example of a fixed action pattern elicited by an appropriate stimulus. Here though, the action is not oriented to the appropriate stimulus because the scent is not in the right place--on the ground.

It reminds me of the textbook example of the greylag goose rolling the displaced egg into its nest. If you remove the egg while the broody goose is retrieving it, she continues the action to completion and to no avail.

I'll have to get more pictures to make sure the fox can't rub against the scent patch. That will convince me that gray foxes are wired to self anoint in a stereotyped fashion only on the ground.

If a bobcat catches wind of the patch, we'll see another and more versatile example of self anointing behavior.

Using the patch

First I went to the garage to make the patches.

I cut the carpet into 2 x 2 inch squares, and burned holes in the corners with a hot awl.

Preparing the decoction had to be done in the kitchen. So I idled my time until the redhead announced she was going to shop for groceries, as I knew she would.

As soon as she left I cut three stems of catnip, took them to the kitchen, and diced them finely on the cutting board reserved for fruit an veg.



Next I swabbed a plastic container with alcohol to erase the scent of boullion cubes. Into this I decanted several ounces of glycerin, a tablespoon of gooey black beaver castoreum, and the minced catnip. Then I added a capful of artificial catnip oil.

I didn't spill a drop, and I removed all traces of my activities, which must remain secret. I know you understand. Ever since the redhead found some raccoon body parts in the refrigerator many years ago, she has enforced rather strict rules about my use of the kitchen.

Back to the garage to sniff . . . . aahhhhh! So fine a scent! I jest not. Castoreum has a sweet tarry essence.

After lunch I took my patches, the decoction, and the rest of the kit and headed down the ravine where I made two new camera trap sets. If it works, I should get pictures of slobbering pole dancing bobcats having their way with the patches.

Return of the beige panther

I moved the camera closer to the boulder last week, and used three lures--the Furfindr, castoreum, and fresh crushed catmint--to attract whatever is out there. I wasn't really expecting another appearance by the beige panther, but the surprise image is what gives camera trapping its thrill.

So today I found 19 photos of the very same cat I posted here a couple weeks ago. The cat with the notched left ear seems to be spending her time in the two ravines on either side of the house.

Study her changing mood. As you can see above, when she arrived at 3:24 AM on April 27th, she was immediately drawn to the scent of the castoreum and catmint.

Next, she settled on the rock and waited for the noisy prey (the Furfindr) to appear. Ahhh, the patience of a cat. The noise-making device, however, was hanging 7 feet above her tail.



The miserable rodent failed to present itself; so she adjusted her position.



Now her head was beneath the periodically sqaulling rodent locked in a section of PVC (just kidding, troops -- it's really a recording device).



She finally accepted defeat, and satisfied herself with a few more snorts of catmint and beaver scent. Then she sat there with the unmistakable look of a forlorn puss.



After twenty six minutes of trying to see, smell, and find the elusive rodent, she parted ways.

Puma invasion

All I can say is, "this is getting crazy". Who wudda thunk you could get two photo sessions with pumas in the same month? Within 250 yards of your house?

So yes, when I viewed the pictures in the ravine this morning -- and found four images of a mountain lion -- well, the endorphins kicked in.

But let me give you the background. Last week on this day I smeared a dab of castoreum (beaver scent) into the moss, and then crushed a fresh sprig of cat mint into it. Five days passed, and the mice danced nightly for the camera (23 of 35 frames--yawn). Yesterday at 4:16PM the puma found the lure.



Her visit was brief. Twenty-six seconds later the camera snapped the last picture as she descended the leaning trunk.



When I got home (sweating like a little pig) my wife was gardening. "Four more pictures of a mountain lion." I announced casually. (That got her attention).

"What?" she said, as she stood up and turned to me.

"Just another four pictures of mountain lion", I repeated with a touch of ho-hum boredom. "Yeah, she climbed the tree to get at the cat mint."

[A little background -- earlier in the week, after I groused that we had the wrong kind of cat mint for camera trapping, my dear wife went to the nursery and bought me a pot of "catNIP mint" (Nepeta cataria). We have a couple patches of the less-effective "catmint" (Nepeta musinii) in the garden.]

"Well, I'm having second thoughts about that mint growing around here."

She explained at lunch that she didn't want mountain lions rolling around in catmint around the house. I tried reasoning with her--"I mean what's worse, a little crushed catmint? Or a bear that uses the hot tub?"

Now for photo analysis. My initial take on the photos was: "Damn, the camera was too close and too low." (I moved it away from the tree for the next episode.) At home, viewing the puma pictures on screen, I noticed that though she was a bit modest, she revealed enough to inform us of her sex. And in one shot I detect a wee bit of paunch -- indicating the wear and tear of motherhood. Then I noticed the divit missing from the left ear. I checked my photo of the statuesque puma that posed last December, but couldn't really see a notch in her ear. (If you want to see previous pictures go to the index and follow the puma thread.) Conclusion: we have here a primiparous puma (i.e., she's given birth once already) with a distinguishing mark (a notched ear).

I am not turning up my nose to pumas, but now I have more pictures of them than bobcats. Are the big cats preying on the smaller ones?

Predators are known to do that, you know. Well, when we have enough catnip mint growing around the place, I can do an intensive survey.

Egg yolk perfume

Last week neighbor Richard asked if I had any use for boiled egg yolks. "Sure", I said. I hadn't trapped any mice in the garage lately, and I was out of chicken giblets." I'll try them as bait." Which brings me to the subject of deviled egg sandwiches. Back in the Pleistocene, when the codger was a kid, mothers sometimes unwittingly subjected their children to unpleasant experiences in school. In those days it wasn't "uncool" to bring your lunch to school in a lunch box or a paper bag. But deviled egg sandwiches were NOT considered "cool", because they would "stink up the cloak room". Those "stinko kids" were ribbed so badly they begged their mothers never to put another egg sandwich in their lunch bag.

Carnivores of course find many smells interesting and seem to love things that smell nasty. So I sprinkled the crumbled egg yolk in the recesses of the boulder -- the same place the bobcat visited last week.





Two nights later, the ringtail and the skunk smelled the eggs. Ringtail got there first, and spent most of the first 6 minutes hunkered over the eggs in a kind of reverie. Its eyes were closed, and it looked like it was drifting off into dreamland. In other shots it looked like it might be rubbing its cheeks on the rock, that is, scent marking. It deferred to the skunk, who sniffed around for 3 minutes and moved on. But the attraction on the boulder was strong. Five minutes later ringtail was back with the dreamy look.

I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe it had indigestion or just decided to take a nap.