Deadman's

Well, I am going to try and get back into this blogging thing in 2016. Lab work hasn't slowed down any, but time to stop using that as an excuse. I still have photos from Belize 2014 and some great herps from Okefenokee Swamp 2014, not to mention some camera trap stuff in the backlog.

So let's start emptying this backlog and hopefully people still have us in their RSS feed or like.

Last winter we set up on Deadman's Scree with the Codger and Carl. You can read the Codger's post. It wasn't a very successful trip from a camera trapping perspective. We hoped to get Pika or white weasels and got neither. So if Pika pictures are what you want make sure you saw Randomtruth's. Weirdo Scree Goose was found.

I set my cam under these rocks to protect it from what ended up being non-existent snow on November 10, 2014. It only ran for a little under a month because of the mice below. We picked the cams up in May with quite a bit of disappointment.

I think these are Peromyscus boylii because the ears don't look big enough for truei, but my mouse ID is quite rusty at this point, so feel free to chime in.




One visit by a Douglas Squirrel, with the ever frustrating foggy lens


Back to the mouse


My Chupacabra, Zoe, made the trip up and down the mountain with us. She was a trooper jumping over deep crevasses and holes in the scree pile big enough to swallow her. However, she would not cross the Yuba River as you can see in the last picture (Thanks Codge).

Alert the Hipsters

WTF.

There is a wild marmot in the San Francisco neighborhood of Bernal Heights. The yuppies must be very confused. Probably hitched a ride back to town with some 30-somethings after their rock climbing adventure. Because apparently everyone is a rock climber these days.

Below is not the SF Marmot (Does it have a clever name yet, a la Sutro Sam? Has it gotten gay married yet? I hope so on both accounts), but a Marmot from when we went up to the Codger's pre-class set-up in the Sierras.

Thanks to Randomtruth for doing some excellent captaining of the car as I shot photos out of the open window.











I used to see Marmots all the time in Yosemite Valley as a kid. We made an annual Spring Break trip to Curry Village with old family friends. It was always a great time and this old Marmot brought back some great memories.  Now we need to get him on camera trap.

Joining the Aplodontia Club

This post is a long time coming ...

Struck out on the elusive Mt. Beaver two years in a row and on my third season in the Sierras I finally got the little guy. Fairly decent pictures of him too, but I wish more images were in full-frame. Now that I got him I can concentrate on getting the perfect picture next year.

Smile for the camera!

I was so busy right after picking up this cam at the Codger's annual camera trapping workshop that I didn't get around to processing them several months later. The nice part about that though was going back through the images was almost like going through them the first time.

Early afternoon Mt. Beaver. Also looks like he is going through a molt. Not sure what is the new coat and what is the old coat though.
Check out that human-like ear

Early evening Mt. Beaver

NOM NOM NOM.  Look at those claws!
No wonder they are able to build such elaborate tunnel systems.
Cropped image

A few more pictures, because, well why the hell not. Keep going to the bottom of the post for a short discussion on the set.

Great look at the ear

Sniff ... Sniff ... Sniff

Go! Go! Go!
A bit blurry but this guy was hauling down the tunnel right at lunch time

This set took pictures for only 6 days. A following post will discuss the flash-activating battery destroyer.

However, every photo of an Aplodontia was taken during daylight hours which is very surprising to me.  The flash still fired during many of the day photos because the camera was situated in a dense alder thicket that did not have a lot of light.

It took roughly 24 hours to get the first Mt. Beaver shot. A Mt. Beaver then visited the camera every day (+5) until the batteries died.

• Day 2: 1:45PM and 2:31PM (considered 1 visit)
• Day 3: 11:03AM
• Day 4: 4:54PM, 5:16PM and 5:24PM (considered 1 visit)
• Day 5: 6:32AM and 7:13AM (considered 1 visit)
• Day 6: 7:11AM and 1:48PM (considered 2 visits)

I think these are likely all the same individual even though the amount of red/brown looks a bit less in some images than in others. I think that might be just an artifact of the camera, but maybe this is more than one critter.

UPDATE:  Per RT's suggestion in the comments another cropped, image.

Guest Post: March of the Marten

This is a guest post by our friend Sean P.  who joins us on many an adventure, from camera trapping the Sierras to herping and BBQing our way through the Mojave Desert. Please feel free to leave comments here and he will be sure to see them.

This is my second year being fortunate enough to work with Chris Wemmer, aka the "Camera Trap Codger." This year I was able to help set traps for his annual camera trap workshop held at the incredible SFSU Sierra Nevada Field Campus. My prime objective, the American marten (Martes americana).

I used a home-brew camera trap with a Sony Cybershot s-600 and a 'Yeti' kit. Unfortunately, when setting up, I did not think to replace the battery powering the mother board/control. Set for night shots only, I started on 7/24/2011... the battery died on 7/31/2011. Four weeks later, I retrieved the camera and realized the error.

Seven shots in eight days. Three weeks of nothing.

Disappointed but, upon return home, I discovered my luck.

First shot a blank- bummer!

Then... shots two and three- my prime objective!








These amazing creatures were followed with four shots of a lovely fawn.






Not bad for what could have turned out to be the camera trap blues! (Although I wish I had the other three weeks of photos...)

Sierra Valley Foxes

As the Codger alluded to, we picked up some cameras in the High Sierras a little while back.  I also did a short set at a cabin I was staying at in Sierra Valley.  First, because this blog is in desperate need of some camera trapped mammals before we get back to the birds I present two, one-night sets.

The first night I put up my camera on a rock 10 feet or so from the rock we (CTC, The Codger, Randomtruth and SPP) used to get the brother fox visitor that was so interested in the Mr. Screechy doll back in June.

Right on cue, we got a fox visitor in five images. 2 for 2 for foxes in this locale. Randomtruth and I discussed the fact that the property must be on the regular nightly loop for this fox.

Only later did I realize that there were two foxes in this image.

The next day I was wandering around the property looking at the Native American acorn grinding pestles (I gotta start taking handheld shots for these posts) in the granite rocks when I started to notice a lot of fox scat. I mean A LOT.  Hundreds of them. Around the base of a rock outcropping.  In between the rocks. Everywhere.  Some old. Some attracting flies.  I figured that the foxes might be living in the dark recesses of these rocks mere feet from the campfire ring. The property may not just be on the nightly loop, but it appeared that it was on the daily hide-spot circuit too.

I soon found a rabbit foot.  Then a squirrel haunch. Then a bird wing. A wing that may or may not have been a chicken. Boggis, Bunce and Bean are not happy.

So I reset on this outcropping hoping that I would get them again, this time with both foxes in full frame.

3 for 3.

Not sure if this is a mated pair of foxes or Mrs. Fox, that sexy vixen, and her older pup.  One of them seems to have those fluffy paws that are a touch too big for their body, making me lean towards mom and pup.

This potential pup looks more Ash than Kristofferson Silverfox though.

I always enjoy the out of focus nose right in the camera image.

Are either of these foxes the same brother fox from two months ago?

One of them found the stick dipped in Predator 700 lure.  Carried it to lower ground and licked it and moved it again. Or maybe ate it as the stick disappears in the next image. Yum. Notice the not-so-fluffy paws.

The eye shine is pretty rough in some of these images, but I am not really sure there is any good way to reduce it, other than post-processing which I was not able to do without the eyes looking fake.  No perfect picture in the bunch but a good number of decent ones.

We will see if we can make it 4 for 4 the next time we are up in the area.

I will delay the traditional (if 5 weeks is a tradition) Friday Link Dump until Monday to keep from stepping on a busy week of posting by CTC standards.  Hopefully the Codger doesn't steal too many of our links. :)

High Sierra Sallies

Being the amateur herpers that we are, we looked high and low for herps during last year's camera trapping workshop in Yuba Pass.  We did not find much.  A single garter snake that we could not get our hands on, and a single lizard tail scurrying into the brush on the side of Hwy 49.  Probably a Scelopera.

So heading out this June to pre-set some cams with the Codger I was not holding my breath that we were going to turn up any herps in only a weekend.  See it was a month earlier, much colder, and there was way more snow on the ground then last year when we nearly got skunked over 5 days.

When we got to the SFSU Field Campus the Yuba River was raging and the garter snake spot was class II rapids with dangerous snags.  Not garter snake friendly territory.

We set  the last of our cameras and parted ways with half our group. CTC, randomtruth, Sean P and the Codger decided we could sneak pass the fallen tree in the road and try exploring one last spot.  We made it past the tree without scratching the car and headed on.  It did not take long to hit a snow bank in the middle of the road though so we had to give up and turn around.  Both cars had seen a promising open area so we stopped and got out of the car on the way back.

Our first find was an ecological phenomenon that the Codger will tell you about at some point.

The second was this little guy, the Long-toed Salamander, Ambystoma macrodactylum sigillatum. I am embarrassed to admit that I had the Santa Cruz Black Salamander, Aneides flavipunctatus niger, on my mind and mis-identified this guy as Aneides macrodactylum at first.  I had the species right and the common name right but I put it in the wrong genus.  Duh! There is another subspecies of this guy, Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum, endemic to a couple of vernal pools in the Monterey Bay area hence my twisted brain.

Photo by ecov ottos (Christian)

Christian flipped this individual under the last log before the car. A log I swore I had already flipped but had missed. There were excited outburts of four letter words not fit for print on the blog uttered and beer toasts to the find back at the cabin.

Photo by ecov ottos (Christian)

I am not sure where this Sallie's breeding pond is as there was no obvious one in the area.  He or she had a trek ahead of them or behind them, not sure but since the snow was not fully melted yet I will guess ahead of them.

Photo by ecov ottos (Christian)

This was a life-lister for most (all?) of the group. It was a great way to close our camera-trapping day. At least until we started our camera-trapping night catching Brother Fox.