Keep Cruisin'

The Great Highway is still a popular route as ever at Santa Cruz's Younger Lagoon.

Munching Raccoon

Here a raccoon has made a fast food stop to chow down on a rabbit that was found as roadkill just outside the reserve.

Flighty Deer through the Fog

Go Go Go.

08:43:06

08:44:10

Chill Bobby

The highway rest stop is used for some good rubbing time and checking out the scenery during a rain storm.

The Great Highway

We return to Younger Lagoon for the last set before our current short break to dry cams and plan the next step.

For this last set, we leave behind the High Plateau and the marsh for a new location. Near one of the first set locations is a fence that encloses the reserve on the south and stretches to farmland that surrounds Younger to the east and north. This is also where we came upon a coyote late last year.

I call this location The Great Highway for during the 54 days in operation it featured 7 indentifiable species in transit and 1.7 positive camera trap triggers per day. Not amazing stats, but one must take into consideration the deluge of rain that pounded the Northern and Central California Coasts throughout the months of February and March.

The most common visitor was the Brush Rabbit, with 14 unique visits.


California Quail were also frequent travelers, often in a flock of at least 16 individuals.


Black-tailed Deer and Striped Skunk made several appearances, but the stars of this set were the Younger Lagoon resident family of bobcats.

'sup

The Life & Times of Don Coyote (an excerpt)

One of the recurring characters at Younger Lagoon Reserve is a character dubbed “Don Coyote” by Jake. This coyote is easily recognized with his ragged, mangy appearance, especially on the tail.

Don made an appearance in the Bushnell marsh set 005. The results from that set were promising, so we didn’t want to leave the marsh. Bobcat prints o’plenty were seen about 50 feet from set 005, thus a decision was made to move the cam to this area. It was placed in a tree looking down at an angle at the print-laden path.

Two days in Don gave his greetings, stopping at a fallen branch doused in Fox Frenzy.

Showing his biting tendencies

Leaving his mark

Bobcat visit

Don visiting his work the next day

Later, two bobcats came to play

About two weeks later, Don inspects the play area

and again left his mark

What lies in the future for the remarkable Don Coyote? I am guessing biting and peeing, but perhaps this canine will entertain us with even greater wonders!

Bonus goodness: Upon leaving, we observed a Bobcat cruising through the mustard fields outside the reserve!

Bite It

The forces of Camera Trapping Campus met up in late December, this time down south at Younger Lagoon. I was to set up a Bushnell Trophy cam, joining Jake's cam on the High Plateau.

The location of this set was a marshy area that was loaded with prints of raccoon, bobcat and deer.

One month later, a camera check. Upon entrance to the reserve, we were greeted by a fine CALIFORNIA THRASHER. We took this as a good omen.

Toxostoma redivivum

The camera appeared quite abused -- muddy from the winter storms and without the plastic covering for the IR flash. A quick search turned up the missing piece and its own damage.



The excitement was soaring, the files could not download fast enough!

Initial photos were full of raccoons and ghostly B/W blank shots.

146 photos in, it appeared.

the best shot of the culprit

What could have caused the coyote to maul the camera? Certainly not the flash, for that is infrared. Perhaps the overwhelming stimuli caused by a scent?

Later, our mangy friend stopped by for a noble portrait. Or was it his mugshot?

Bad day to leave the DSLR at home

Bobcats two days in a row!

This time a pair at Younger Lagoon Reserve.  I had a Canon point and shoot with me at the time but did not bring my DSLR.  This was supposed to be an in and out mission to check on a camera and only possibly move it, so I went light.  I won't make that mistake again.

The pair of bobcats were pretty bold and one of them sat there watching me for 5 minutes or so as I snapped a few photos and watched it fill up my binoculars.  They were a little different in size and I suspect the larger bolder one was the male and the smaller shyer one the female, but this is pure speculation.  Bobcats do not show strong sexual dimorphism, but when they do it is strongest in the coastal low-elevation portions of their range (Dobson SF and Wigginton JD).  Considering the bobcats could hear the waves of Monterey Bay from where they watched me I think that qualifies as coastal.  I watched them for a bit and might have been able to sit there for hours without them spooking, but unfortunately they were sitting in the path I needed to go down.  I turned back to where I had come from a waited and few minutes and then came back around the corner but the larger one was still sitting there blocking my way.  I decided to very slowly keep moving towards them and they eventually, very calmly, sauntered into a willow patch.  It was such a treat to see them and have them never spook, just retreat at their own leisurely pace.

White-tailed Kites, Elanus leucurus, were putting on an aerial show, chasing each other and hunting in the fields.  I saw at least 5 individual kites today with a total of 8 sightings.  Some sightings may have been a previously seen kite.  Next time I am out there I will have to try and photograph these guys with a DSLR.

Bobcat photos below:

Not super easy to see, but both of are in this photo.

The larger bolder animal.  Sat there looking at me for quite some time.

The shyer, redder, smaller animal

These three photos were cropped.

Dobson SF and Wigginton JD, Environmental influences of the sexual dimorphism in body size of western bobcats, Oecologia, Volume 108, Number 4, 610-616, DOI: 10.1007/BF00329033