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This blog is predominately about camera trapping in California. We camera trap to save our souls and to teach primary school students about biology and conservation. We will also touch on other camera trapping news and musings, sets from afar, mediocre herpetology, sucky birding, and other natural history discussions.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Bobcats on the High Plateau

The camera on the High Plateau was running out of batteries.  As the batteries got really low the picture quality went down with them, but just before it completely died we got a bobcat walking across the set.

On the hunt

Thirty minutes later it came back by the camera.  One less brush rabbit on the High Plateau.  Interestingly this is the only brush rabbit picture we got during daylight hours.  Maybe they knew what they were doing only showing themselves after dark.

Success!

I did not get a chance to look at this set in the field like I usually do.  I grabbed the camera, jumped in the car and headed out to Arnold, CA to meet Christian and some other folks at a cabin we had for the weekend.  Everyone made fun of us for being such nerds as we cracked open a beer and huddled around the computer with the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning to see what images we got.  When the second picture came on the screen, there was whooping and hollering and maybe a little victory dance as the other cabin mates wondered what the heck they just got themselves into.  "Do we really have to be stuck in a cabin with these two all weekend?"

We reset the camera with fresh batteries at the same spot a couple of weeks later and picked it up last week.  No additional predation shots but some higher quality images to share soon.

3 comments:

  1. Awesome catch (for you guys and the bobcat)!

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  2. You've attained an important plateau in camera trapping. Maybe if you had shared the beer with your buddies they would have been more enthusiastic. Good work!

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  3. Bay Laurel: Thanks a lot. I laughed when you basically called this shot in the brush rabbit post. Happy fat bobcats for sure.

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