Poison Water guzzlers-thirsty bunnies

Desert cottontails and black-tailed jackrabbits were Poison Water regulars.  

Drinkers in the spring can not easily see approaching predators. 

Which makes you wonder how many have been stalked and caught by bobcats and coyotes while drinking behind the boards of the spring. 

Between rocks and hard places

Some of the most interesting camera trap sets are between rocks and hard places. 

We're talking about caves, mine shafts, lava tubes, natural chimneys, boulder piles, rock recesses, crevices, fissures and other situations you commonly encounter around bluffs and rimrock. 

The camera trapper's usual tools of the trade, like bunji cords, rope, wire, and stakes with special mounts usually don't do the trick where trees are absent and the ground is solid rock or sandstone.  `

So you make a cairn or prop the cam between rocks like I did at the Wind River Ranch last year.

A good wind can move it, and a bear can topple it. 

The ideal tool is an expansion post, but it took neighbor Richard and me a few weeks of desultory discussions about the relative merits of compression springs versus threaded rods before we had a plan.  

We settled on half inch threaded rod as the means of expanding and locking the post in place. 

This is basically the principle of the car jack.

The posts were made from pieces of used conduit (7/8ths inch outside diameter) cut to various lengths. 

We drove nuts into both ends of the posts, and screwed short lengths of threaded rod into one end. 

Several sections of expansion post measuring 36, 18, and 9 inches. 

The middle piece is 2 sections screwed together. 

Then we braised the nuts and rods into place.

Any number of lengths can be screwed together to fit gaps of different size.

The end pieces are the key parts for fixing the post solidly in place.  

A short stationary end piece is flattened like a chisel. It locks into place as you turn the screw by hand. 

The turning end is rounded (a carriage bolt head) or pointed (a lag bolt or a threaded screw machined to a point) and thus can be turned on a 12-inch length of threaded rod.  

It bores into a crevice or an irregularity in the rock. 

We tried it out at the rock recess, and it worked like a charm.  

The post is solidly in place with no wiggle room.

Poison Water guzzlers -- amphibians

Western toad (Bufo boreas)

A few amphibians make Poison Water Spring their home, at least during the dry months. 

Water is scarce and localized on the ranch, especially during the hot months, so it seems likely that most frogs and toads are underground estivating in August when these pictures were taken. 

The spring seems to be an oasis for only a few amphibians.

California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii)

 

The photos were all incidental, taken while bats, jackrabbits or birds triggered the camera. 

Froglets, toadlets, or maybe Pacific tree frogs (Hyla regilla)

Pacific tree frogs were the only amphibians we encountered when setting the camera. 

Poison Water guzzlers -- Western screech owl

Unless you are approaching the golden years of codgerdom, you may not remember comedian Jackie Vernon's appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and his solemn pronouncement --  "A wet bird never flies at night".

Actually Vernon credited philosopher Sig Sakowitz for that gem of wisdom, but he believed it.

And so did I. 

I believed the heavy hand of natural selection had weeded out wet birds that dared to fly at night.

Now I am starting to have doubts.  

You see, it was night -- 9:40PM to be exact -- when this Western screech owl mirrored itself before the still waters of Poison Water Spring. 

Five minutes later it waded into the murky shallows.

 

Okay, it was only a sitz bath, but the camera took two more pictures at intervals of 8 and 16 minutes. 

Which makes me think it was a case of bathus interruptus -- in and out, always on the lookout, and all nervous like girls skinny dipping in the 60s. 

This little joker, a recent fledgling showed up the next night . . . .

. . . . sipped bath water . . . 

and definitely got his or her pantalones wet. 

I can't prove that the birds flew wet into the night, but I doubt they left Poison Water in a state of popcorn dryness. 

Sometimes you have to give up cherished beliefs.

Nowadays I'm inclined to believe that wet birds do fly at night. 

Poison Water guzzlers -- dickeybirds

Left to right: California towhee, Lesser nighthawk, rufous-crowned 

sparrow, hummingbird impersonator (you tell me), Oak titmouse 

Admittedly, they're not much as bird portraits, but they are good enough to identify water hole guzzlers.  

Sage sparrows showing age-sex differences in plumage.

Examining 400+ photos is a lot of work, and poor picture quality means more work, because you have to drag the jpg from IPhoto to Photoshop to eyeball it up close.

Here is a summary.

Number of appearances by species; 18-21 August '09 (487 photos).

If you just count frames, California towhees placed first as the most photographed bird, with California and Mountain quail placing second and third. 

Oak titmice were often seen clinging to a timber waiting to dash in for a quick drink. 

We got only one frame of the Lesser nighthawk -- seen at the top of the page drying out after a bath -- and two frames of a white-breasted nuthatch. 

When the scrub jay visited other birds stayed away. 

Frequency of bird and mammal photos at dawn, dusk and night.

For the sake of economy we set the controller for night pictures, so we don't know what species visited Poison Water during the warm hours of the day.

A northern flicker butts in on the quail for a drink of bathwater.

The camera still operated in low light -- becoming active around 7:00PM when there was a flurry of bird activity and turning off just before 7:00AM. 

It is tempting to set the camera for round-the-clock activity.

That gap in the data makes you wonder who shows up in the heat of day.   

 

Poison Water guzzlers -- the Mountain Quail

Was the loner a scout or just thirstier than his kin who were lurking out of sight?

Chimineas Ranch, San Luis Obispo County, California

In only four days of operation, the camera took 487 photos at Poison Water Spring.

Birds were the most common subjects, and California Quail were numerically dominant among the 12 species of birds that guzzled at the spring.

A distinctive handsome fellow -- a Mountain Quail -- appeared amongst the evening guzzlers on the 4th day . 

Flank and bib coloration set the California and Mountain Quail apart. 

The camera took several pictures of him in the company of a small number of California Quail. 

One California Quail on the rail watches the Mountaineers guzzle below.

When the California Quail dispersed a small clan of Mountain Quail joined him. 

A few California Quail watched them from the grandstand seats.  

They're on the move

I knew I forgot something. 

I failed to mention the tarantulas in my previous post about my last trip to the Chimineas Ranch.

They were on the move-- male tarantulas, marching inexorably to the promised land.

In this case the promised land can be translated to female tarantulas larger than themselves and the prospect of mating.

It's a fatal attraction, because female tarantulas, like many other spiders often eat their mates when the seminal transaction is over.  

I saw dozens of the hairy fellows pausing at the edge of Soda Lake Road as I cruised by at 37.5 mph in my ancient red Honda. (I was low on gas). 

Their traffic sense must pay off, because I saw only a few black splats on the road.   

Arachnophiles celebrate the annual tarantula migration in various ways, and you can't blame them for getting excited. 

You don't see sexual crusades very often.

And crusades that end with the mothers-to-be eating their sperm donors are pretty unusual.