Autumn Adventures: F Raccoons, New Birds & The Cinco

Autumn 2017 will be a time etched in the memories of Bay Area residents. The raging inferno across the North Bay and its voluminous smoke trail were a sobering moment of reflection, with a fresh appreciation for time and all that one has, materially and in the community. On a personal level, a little mammal was also welcomed into the world the first week of October and has blown the collective mind at home.

That appreciation of time is truly been a focus personally and when it comes to adventures outdoors, they are primaily in the realm of work with my students. They continue to put in the effort with the river otter study, which has reaped unique results.

New (expected, but never captured) mammals have been present in our sets with glimpses of a coyote and the invasive muskrat.

Several new species of birds have shown up -- some of them the more secretive sort that we don't often see during field visits -- offering opportunities to discuss a variety of organisms and their behaviors.

I think this is the year I finally got the Hutton's Vireo/RC-Kinglet distinction down (sof course, omebody will say this is actually a Hutton's)

After a down year in 2016, the otters have been reliably present and pretty consistently in a pack of 5. The Cinco, as they have been dubbed by my students -- possibly due to slight adjustments in camera placement -- have been on our cameras with a much greater frequency this past autumn and now into winter. During a two week stretch around Thanksgiving we had 29 unique visits - a new benchmark by a hefty margin.

For every success, we must recognize our failures...which will be entirely blamed on raccoons.

Rascals or Assholes?