Vote for the 2016 Walnut Label

Windscorpian   

It's walnut harvest time. There's going to be a big crop and lots of neighbors and friends to share the bounty. Everybody gets to vote on the critter that goes on the label for the 2016 Dipper Ranch walnuts. Usually the label features one of the snakes that appeared on the ranch during the year, but there weren't many snakes this year. Why? Maybe because of the gray fox family that moved into the barn. Yes, foxes eat snakes. If you don't believe me, check out this video from the Camera Trap Codger.

I'm stubborn and even without a huge selection of snakes to choose from this year, I am not going to put some cutesy animal on the label. Instead, you get to choose among local animals I saw in 2016 which have a reputation of being creepy or strange, but really aren't. Mostly reptiles, spiders and bugs, but also some strange mammal tricks.

Who Scrapes There?

The first time a bobcat goes by the camera in this time period is November 12 near first light.   

A few days after I posted the Puma Scrapes story, I took a hike with my neighbors. To celebrate each new year, we take a hike across our rural neighborhood, usually from one house to another. On this year's Cuppa Sugar Hike, we found a fresh scrape on a trail at the edge of a wooded area.

"What animal left this mark?" we wondered. Especially since the scrape was unusually shaped, more of a square than a rectangle, and with a long narrow scat at the back.

"No problem," I said, "I've got a wildlife camera mounted just uphill. We'll check which animal went by after the rain five days ago and then we'll know."

First Mud Puddle

First mud puddle - must have been some party going on after that rain   

Rain. Here are photos of tracks that appeared in one little mud puddle on the Dipper Ranch after rainstorms finally arrived in mid-November. Can you tell what the tracks are from? The mud puddle was on a road that goes past the water tank.

Everyone's saying "Rain" with such joy. We've been getting rainstorms every few days. People have been going out for walks in it. Waking up at night to watch the stormy skies. Turning off the radio and TV to listen to the sound of it on the roof and the leaves.

Bad Bad Bushnell Brown

Arrggh, that sinking feeling when I open up my Bushnell HD Trophy trail camera and the date says January 1, 2013. It's not January and it isn't even 2013. Rats, the camera reset itself! I know this means the Bushnell has probably missed some shots and quite possibly has a completely blank memory card.

I check the battery level, the memory card, and every one of the 20 steps in the complicated menu. And I check them again. Everything seems to be working fine, at least right now. One of the batteries is sticking out a little. I tap it. Was it loose or not? I don't know but the rangers are waiting for my advice and I've got a dreadful feeling.

(click Read More to continue but be forewarned there are gory photos of a deer carcass coming up and predator photos)

Zombie Rodent

Mountain beaver (a.k.a. aplodontia) is one of the unusual mammals you get to practice camera trapping on at this workshop in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. It took me several months to realize why this particular camera, Wingscapes Birdcam 2, would occasionally get great close-up nighttime photos with flash but never more than one. Something about the electronics in this model shut the camera down after one or two flash photos. This model is now discontinued. For more info about this unusual burrowing mammal go here and a fellow alumnus has better photos of the zombie rodent here.  

Dr. Chris Wemmer announced his 2014 camera trapping workshop - if you ever wanted to get serious about using trail cameras to understand the mammals on your study site or the back-40 then this five-day adventure is for you. In 2014, it will be July 13-18 at the Sierra Nevada Field Campus in beautiful Yuba Pass, California.

More Rain More Yoga

Yesterday the yearling deer 

danced in the first shower of their drought-born lives.

Today I freely tumbled

in the gentle waves of mountain yoga.

More rain.

More yoga.

Namaste Jikoji mountain home

Flying Foxes

With short legs, flexible forearms, and recurved claws, gray foxes readily climb trees.   

What is the "fantastic fossorial fellow according to Roald Dahl" and the final flying visitor to the Dipper Ranch persimmon tree in 2013? None but Fantastic Mr. Fox, or specifically at the Dipper Ranch, the spirited, leaping and tree climbing common gray fox.

Antler Eve

"Look, we've got visitors," said Mr. Gingerbread Boyfriend as he watched the sunset on Christmas Eve from the new bathroom window.

Sharps at Sunset

A large buck crosses the driveway and heads down the hill at sunset.  

I am working on a post about deer at the Newt Spring in late summer and early fall. So many different deer families and they are regrouping this time of year. My notes are something likes this:

Breakfast at the Dipper Ranch

Black-tailed does at the water trough as seen through a window screen on an early summer morning.

Something is going on with the black-tailed deer. The does are congregating near the house. Maybe the water in the cattle trough and bird baths is attracting them. It has been a dry year and perhaps their other easy sources of water have dried up. Maybe predators have pushed them to the top of the property or to congregate in bigger, safer groups. Or maybe their fawns are old enough now that the does of several generations are joining back up in their matriarchal herds. However, most of the does don't seem to have fawns anymore. The largest and therefore probably oldest doe has one fawn. And another doe has one fawn. A third doe has had a yearling buck with pencil-stub antlers following her around and it looks like a yearling doe (who didn't breed last year or lost her fawns this year?) has joined her recently too. I wonder what the gals are talking about at the water trough.

Weeding at Sunset is like a Prayer

Goodnight Mindego Hill. Goodnight land of San Francisco gartersnakes.
Goodnight slowly diminishing hillsides of purple starthistle.  

The weeds have raised their ugly heads. Italian thistle is starting to blow seeds, milk thistle is fat and purple, and yellow starthistle is bolting. I hope you got many weeds at their seedling and rosette stages (see Thistle Logic for these early strategies). There is still time to capture more weed seed before it ripens and escapes.

Weeding can be hard and weeds can be depressing. We need a coping mechanism. Every few days, I make sure to weed where I can watch the sun set. Recently while admiring a tangerine-blasted horizon, I found myself singing while tossing thistles into an overflowing wheelbarrow. From whence comes such joy? Weeding at sunset is like a prayer.

Fat Does

Swelling doe 4/16/12

Who is going to see the first fawn this year?

In the Provident Shadow of Omnivores

Nighttime silhouette in the wildlife camera at the cattle pen.

I felt restless in late November as I often do around the full moon, but I was also nervous about attending a four-wheel drive class. Meanwhile, the omnivores were leaving sign at new places on the Dipper Ranch, sometimes being rascals and sometimes making fortuitous appearances.

In the middle of the night before the 4WD class, I woke suddenly. Everything was silent. There were no kids or cats jumping on the bed, so I looked out the window to check on Orion's progress. Under the foggy full moon, the backyard was blurred by swaying tree shadows. Then I saw an especially dark shadow slink in a diagonal path. Was that an animal moving or was I just sleepy?

Snow Moon

Full moon through California buckeye tree at the Dipper Ranch, February 25, 2013

Late February's full moon is the Snow Moon.  In central coastal California, we had snow for about 4 hours this winter.

I meant to photograph the full moon just as it was coming over Georgia's Ridge. I was inside getting ready by cleaning my best lens only to get distracted by amazing reflections of the cowboy light in the newly cleaned lens.

Fall at the Horse Meadow

When the days got short and the nights crisp, the animals came to the horse meadow. Mostly they came to eat the persimmons off the tree. Long retired to the meadow, the horse shared his only tree because he wanted to watch the visitors.

The raccoons came at night. Once when it was raining, they came during the day as if the raindrops hid their bandit ways. The mama raccoon led the parade with her back rolling up

Extra Toes in the Redwoods

Large tracks on Windy Hill Open Space Preserve
(no longer sure whether these are mountain lion or not, see comments)

The San Francisco Bay Area Tracking Club will be holding their September tracking event at the Dipper Ranch on Sunday, September 9, 2012, 8 - 11 am.  Casual potluck afterwards for those who want to stay longer.  You do not need to be a member of the tracking club to attend this event, just interested in learning. Read on for details.

A Cheerful Disposition

Another reason to love my Gitzo tripod - it's a great place to pose a snake.  Notice the incomplete triad - sixth band behind the head. By photographing distinct patterns, I can record and distinguish different kingsnakes on the Dipper Ranch and get a rough idea of population size.

What does it mean when people leave dead snakes on your desk? It was only a 4-inch long nightsnake, its death a mystery to the finder, but why leave it on my desk? There is no in-box in my cubicle that says, "Leave all manner of  crumbled flowers, mushy weeds, bugs and dead animals here."

Ok, I have eccentric friends and I share their nature geek reputation. Still, geek-to-geek, shouldn't one remember that fellow biologists are often out of the office for days at a time,  and even a small snake will get smelly after a few days when it is dead? I have forgiven the geek in question because she really wanted to confirm this was one of the rarely seen nightsnakes, and she has pulled me out of many a pickle. And the petri dish coffin was a nice touch. How does your nature geek club keep things interesting?

Bareheaded Bucks and a Springtime Quiz

Seven bucks in formal antler attire, Dipper Ranch sunset, Christmas 2011

It's the bareheaded season for bucks - by March they should have dropped their antlers. So far this winter, I haven't seen any brown and therefore recently-shed antlers on the ground. On the other hand, all the deer I see right now are antler-less. I play this game in late winter and spring - I try to figure out which are the does and which are the bucks by their body shapes and behavior. If I see a group of deer that are of mixed sizes, I assume it is the matriarch doe with her last two generations of daughters.  If I see a large single deer, I assume it is a lone buck. But I'm not sure, so the guessing game is actually quite fun for the next month or so.

The Columbian black-tailed buck grows and sheds its antlers every year. The antler calendar goes something like this:

Tooth, Nail, Beak or Bone?

Katie at Nature ID and I are having a conversation about animal sign on vegetation.  I'm posting these photos for her  and will followup later with details.  I enjoy sharing info online with other nature bloggers - it's a great way to complement our learning.  More photos at "Read More"

Coyote Brush Highway

Hot day on the Coyote Brush Highway for a coyote pup.

The game was up.  With their keen noses and my sensitive skin, I didn't expect to get additional close-up glimpses of the coyote pups as I did in June.  To keep track of their progress, I decided to place wildlife cameras near the brushy thicket where I frequently saw them. Not only did I suspect the coyote brush sheltered their den, but soon I learned how important the brushy structure was to many other types of wildlife.