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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.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Toss me some beads

Its a veritable Mardi Gras on the California coast, including here in Santa Cruz.

There are Boobies everywhere.

A full on invasion.

Well, maybe not everywhere, but certainly more than usual, which is almost never. So far they have all been juvenile Blue-footed Boobies. It took me two days and about five hours, but I finally got a quick glance at one this afternoon. My eyes were practically bleeding after looking at thousands of pelicans, cormorants, gulls, shearwaters, and terns trying to turn one of them into a Booby.

No Booby pics, but the marine mammals were also out in good force. Yesterday had a half a dozen or more humpback whales including a mother in calf near shore. I also saw a couple of sea otters. Today had only 1-2 humpbacks but over a dozen sea otters.

A few poor images of the marine mammals below.

No go out to the coast and look for boobies.

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Here is a link to some actual good Booby images from Santa Cruz. Link goes to a single photo, but poke around Alex's library for a few more.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Saturday, September 7, 2013

What does the fox say?

This video went viral a few days ago ... swear this must be Christian's long-lost Skandi spirit animal-mate




Enjoy and sorry for the ad

Friday, September 6, 2013

WMR Pt. 2: Friday Coyote Blogging

Here we are close to the previous set, on the edge of a ravine.

I had a devil of a time getting the proper angle -- and as the results show, it was not truly achieved.

The only captured visitor was The Trickster...


Monday, September 2, 2013

West Marin Rambles Pt. 1

Over the summer I placed several cameras in the hills around San Geronimo. Some desired locations were denied due to tremendous poison oak growth, but interesting results were still attained.

Today's set places us inside a patch of chaparral scrub alongside a trio of urine stained boulders.

The first cam placed was a Bushie set to video. Its arrangement, indecisive -- between a rodent-focused set and medium-sized mammal chill-on-a-rock set.



wood rat


sonoma chipmunk


psychedelic morning chipmunk

really enjoy watching these chipmunks leap


gray fox, of course



The Bushnell was then swapped out for a quick overnight set with a homebrew in order to try to get a few nicer color shots.



dusky-footed wood rat




raccoon
kinda dig the angle of this raccoon