Title Image

Title Image

About:

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.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

JENGA

The scene when I went to check the camera

Rewind two weeks. The previous days of summer had seen camera trap sets that produced stirring images of blades of grass and posing hikers, but no critters.

I had been walking back from another epic failure when I noticed  an IMMENSE  pile of scat in the middle of the fire road/trail. Now this was a truly epic shitpile. Upon closer examination it appeared that each layer was from a different animal, and they delicately left their mark in a version of the classic game, Jenga.

I tucked the location away in the old memory (as well as GPS) and returned a week later with full supplies.

The Jenga game was still on as I searched the area around the trail. To one side was a gap among the bay trees, with a game trail shrouded in poison oak. I leapt down and discovered that the brush quickly cleared and a wide avenue lay before.

I ran from possible set location to set location like an uncaged border collie, finally settling on side view of the avenue, where it forked into a seasonal creek.

Two weeks later, we had a loser in the Jenga game and a few sweet images to get off the summer snide.








More to come from the exciting location...

5 comments:

  1. A great assortment so far.

    That pair of 'yotes at the end is a gem (hard enough to get one of them in-frame, let alone two!).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great sleuthing and what a successful set!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice scene, 24 hour set and great species diversity. The 3 bass notes of a happy cam trapper.

    ReplyDelete
  4. *Like* the epic shitpile! I love shit!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great pictures (especially the last one). Also, love the 'epic shitpile' part :)

    ReplyDelete