Thinking Backwards: the Camera

A bushy-tailed woodrat eating mystery food in the Sierras.
This photo was adjusted for exposure and sharpness.  

A scree slope seems like a barren landscape to search for wildlife. Shrink yourself. Then imagine scampering the maze beneath the jumbled rocks. Suddenly the underground landscape has warm-blooded potential.

Standing on a scree slope above 6700-foot Yuba Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range is a good place to take a mental leap. I wanted to photograph bushy-tailed woodrats (Neotoma cinerea) which den under the rocks but I was struggling to understand the new Bushnell HD Trophy camera. You would think that setting up trail cameras, aka as wildlife cameras, is all about the technology - the sensors, trigger, flash, and digital equipment. But you also need a feral imagination since you are not going to be there when the camera is triggered. You have to picture the animal moving in the landscape, often at night, and contrive a plan to steal a few moments of its life on a carefully set camera.

Cam Trap Mistakes: The Stubborn Brush Rabbit

A brush rabbit in a willow thicket at dusk.
Photo taken with Moultrie M100 trail camera and post-processed (cropped, exposure and contrast adjusted).  

In July, I took a five-day workshop in the Sierras on photographing wildlife with trail cameras. It was an excellent workshop at the beautiful Sierra Nevada Field Campus. There are no good books yet about using remote cameras to photograph wildlife (aka camera trapping), but there are good blogs on the adventures of experienced cam-trappers with gorgeous photos and exciting videos, websites that review trail cameras, and trail camera discussion groups.*

I learned a lot at the workshop especially from my mistakes. What the heck, why not share my cam trap bloopers? In these next few posts, I will reveal the trials of a novice cam trapper and throw in my subjective reviews of a few commercial trail cameras with example photos (and maybe videos?).

First up is The Stubborn Brush Rabbit.

A Fox Dines on the Jepson Manual

A grey fox smiling at a tasty meal or the Flehman response?

While I was away at a workshop in the Sierras, the mice did play. And so did the cats. Somehow, this resulted in a grey fox eating dinner off my Jepson I manual. How did this happen? How did a botanist end up playing with foxes? Learning is a good thing and sometimes it changes your perspective.

When Is a Heifer Not a Heifer?

An unexpected calf on the Dipper Ranch in May 

Heifers are female cows who have never bred. Steers are male cattle who have been fixed so they cannot breed. The grazing operation at the Dipper Ranch is a seasonal lease and this year as in previous years, Cowboy V reported that he was bringing in 80 heifers and steers from December to June.

In May, I found a small black calf on the ranch. How did that happen?

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.

Sharp-Tailed Snake : Long or Short?

Sharp-tailed snake showing the black-white crossbars underneath and spine on the tip of its tail.  

Do you ever just flip through a field guide? Besides enjoying the gorgeous illustrations such as Stebbins' plates in Western Reptiles and Amphibians, I sometimes randomly open a field guide and start reading. I know I will either learn an interesting fact or hear a good story from a raconteur like Alan St. John in Reptiles of the Northwest. And I might remember an important fieldmark for the next time I have only a few seconds to identify a surprise visitor.

Recognizing a distinct black-white pattern helped me respond quickly to a little snake that appeared in the yard in April. Was this the newly described forest sharp-tailed snake? I immediately abandoned my yardwork and spent the rest of the afternoon playing citizen scientist.

Tracks Upon Tracks

A mountain lion journeys along the old stage coach road.

When Naiad and I returned to the house after our afternoon of tracking at the end of the road, we excitedly checked the memory cards from the wildlife cameras to see what "hits" we got over the last few weeks. Mostly cows, lots of cows. Cattle are irresistibly drawn to the ribbon of an open road.

The trusty old Recon camera, however, had a short series of very interesting photos taken three mornings earlier:

Tracks at the End of the Road

To find a raccoon, be a raccoon 

"We could go to the end of the road," I prompted Naiad, trying to keep her moving and distracted. "This is an old stage coach road. It probably went back to lumber mills and then the Shriner's camp before it became a state park." Now, I explained, the old road ends at a remote location on the Dipper Ranch where a steep ravine has been washing out crossings and culverts for a long time. "Maybe a hundred years!" I claimed to make the dirt road sound exciting.