Souvenirs

I got back from a quick trip to Belize a couple of weeks ago. I should start to trickle out some posts from our adventures and misadventures there in the coming weeks.


However it was a little weird landing back in the States and filling out my custom form.


Nothing.


I had literally nothing to declare. Not even a bottle of hot sauce. No souvenirs bought for myself or anyone else.


Or so I thought.


Turns out I did bring back a souvenir.


Four of them for that matter.


Dermatobia hominis


One in my shoulder, one on my side-boob, on in my shin, and lastly one on my ankle.


I didn't realize what was going on until last night. I just thought they were bites that had gotten infected and were taking forever to heal. They kept oozing liquid and blood and there was a hard nodule under the surface of the skin that I thought was just an inflammatory reaction. Every once in a while a shooting pain would spread quickly from the bite. Sharp enough to wake me from my sleep, but nothing earth-shattering. Overall the bite site was sore, but I could tolerate it. But instead of getting better these symptoms got a bit worse.


My mom suggested it was botfly because her friends kid once went to Belize and got a botfly ... you know how those mom stories go.


But I was concerned enough that I did some google image search of botfly wounds.


"Shit. My bites look a lot like those", I thought.


Then I thought I could feel the larva moving when I pressed on the wound, but I wasn't sure if it was all in my dome.


Then I put some Vicks Vapor Rub on the open hole. After a bit one of the little bastards stuck their head out to breath. Only then was I 100% sure I had the botfly.

Vern at approximately two weeks of age. He lived in my shoulder. He was growing quickly, feeding off of my flesh. He might have lived to be 2cm if I hadn't ended it all so early

Botfly breathing tunnel in my ankle

Human Botfly, or Dermatobia hominis, can use mosquitos to be the vector for their eggs, which explained why I never saw a large fly bite me and still got the youngin' living inside of me. From wikipedia:

Dermatobia fly eggs have been shown to be vectored by over 40 species of mosquitoes and muscoid flies, as well as one species oftick;[2] the female captures the mosquito and attaches its eggs to its body, then releases it. Either the eggs hatch while the mosquito is feeding and the larvae use the mosquito bite area as the entry point, or the eggs simply drop off the muscoid fly when it lands on the skin. The larvae develop inside the subcutaneous layers, and after approximately eight weeks, they drop out to pupate for at least a week, typically in the soil. The adults are large flies resembling bumblebees. They are easily recognized because they lack mouthparts (as is true of other Oestrid flies).

Now what? Again remedies from wikipedia:

Recently, physicians have discovered that venom extractor syringes can remove larvae with ease at any stage of growth. As these devices are a common component of first-aid kits, this is an effective and easily accessible solution.[3] 

A larva has been successfully removed by first applying several coats of nail polish to the area of the larva's entrance, weakening it by partial asphyxiation.[4] 

Covering the location with adhesive tape would also result in partial asphyxiation and weakening of the larva, but is not recommended because the larva's breathing tube is fragile and would be broken during the removal of the tape, leaving most of the larva behind.[4] 

The easiest and most effective way to remove botfly larvae is to apply petroleum jelly over the location, which prevents air from reaching the larva, suffocating it. It can then be removed with tweezers safely after a day. 

Oral use of ivermectin, an antiparasitic avermectin medicine, has proved to be an effective and non invasive treatment that leads to the spontaneous emigration of the larva.[5] This is especially important for cases where the larva is located at inaccessible places like inside the inner canthus of the eye.

I tried the venom extractor kit first. That worked for the one on my shin, but just gave me a hickie at the other three locations.

So asphyxiation with camphor flavored petroleum jelly, AKA Vick's Vapor Rub. That worked anywhere from 12-18 hours later.

I was tempted to let the one I called Carlito, live in my ankle, and hatch him out, but it was living on close to the joint, so if I did too much walking, he'd get angry and start throwing those spines into the wall of his tunnel (my flesh) and things would get sore.

Herps of the Mojave

All of these Mojave Desert posts and I have been holding back the herp pictures from you. Here I present to you the herps without legs.

Wait a Mojave post that actually has Herps in it! I know shocking.

The herping on this year's desert trip was very different than 2011. I got two life species, and one hombre that has been going to the Mojave for 25 years got a lifer for this part of California. That being said we saw much fewer reptiles in both numbers and species than we did in 2011. There were probably two main factors (1) Less rain = less plant seeds = less rodent food = less snake food and (2) It got cold quick. The road was under 80°F a mere hour after sunset.

The first night of driving we split into two cars and one car saw four sidewinders, all babies and the other car spotted one sidewinder, again a baby, at the meet-up point so car 1 got their fifth snake of the night.







When we got back to camp we found another group of campers had parked right next to us and set-up their tents within 100 feet of ours.  WTF. 1.6 million acres to chose and you set-up right next to another group. It would have been a total bummer of a night if not for late night fajitas, tequila and a good campfire. We got two visiters right before bed, one wasn't really welcome, no we don't want to share our campfire with you, but the other was most welcome. Ben happened to find our second visiter on his way back from peeing on some rocks.

Believe it or not this is a lifer for me. I have seen plenty in captivity but my first wild Rosy Boa. In a locale that I wasn't really convinced they even existid in to boot.

She, yes she, no spurs, was not very cooperative when it came to photography though. She really wouldn't sit still so these are not the best or photographs.










The following night we saw but a single snake on the road. Again a species we had already seen, but this time an adult.








And one shot of some herpers on the ridge in the middle of the day falsely thinking they can turn up something other than a whiptail




Some herps with legs next week.

We Suck at Birding

I gotta admit we suck at birding.  We spent a day arguing over a bird and trying to chase it down only to realize that it was two different birds and we were talking past each other the whole time. Maybe Mojave 2013 will require the presence of a real-life birder.

MacGillivray's Warbler, one of the birds in question

A couple of shots of a likely Crissal's Thrasher from a camera trap that was supposed to get ground squirrels, but only got this dang sunrise bird.

What's up?

Crop of above image: what looks like a light iris, white mustache, slightly more gray than brown.

Beauty of a morning

Thanks to Seagull Steve for suggesting the possibility of Crissal's, rather than LeConte's, but in no way hold him accountable if this is not a Crissal's. I sent him low-resolution images when getting his opinion and neglected to resend high-resolution images.

Occasionally, we were able to identify a few feathered friends.

Red-tailed Hawk in nest.

And yet there were still questions…

Gray Flycatcher? Migrating Hammond's? UPDATE: Or Neither Townsend's Solitaire

Cassin's or Western Kingbird. F! Update: Western it is

Because we suck at birding feel free to correct our IDs if needed. Birding by photography can be tough because you often don't have all the angles necessary to make a good ID later.

UPDATE: Some IDs fixed thanks to Seagull Steve in the comments

Viva La Revolucion

I went from looking like this:

To this:

My pup does not trust me any longer without the beard.

Hopefully she figures it out in a little bit of time.

At least it won't be so hot in the desert.

Please be kind reviewer #3, even though I know you won't be.

450+ images and all I got was this flipping bird

Title says it all, but I turned all the images into a short movie.




Sigh*

Just way too much open space for the IR sensor to wig out on.  Lesson learned. But there were a few images in there of one living chordate.







This is one of the Carpodacus finches, likely Carpodacus mexicanus, the House Finch. While a common bird this is the first time I have gotten them on camera trap and actually the first time I have "seen" them at Younger Lagoon at all.




Thanks to local birding legend Steve Gerow for the ID help. I was not sure if it was a House Finch or a Purple Finch and really how to tell the difference between the two. Steve wrote:

"but the impression I get of the general structure ... is much more like House Finches, with a smaller rounder head, short bill with just about the right curve to the culmen, etc.  Purple Finches almost always look larger headed, with a squarer or more angular head shape, and a longer bill that is not so curved.."

Conclusion: I have a lot of room for improvement in my birding skillz and my non-amphitheatre style trap set placement skillz.

Bobcats in the Mist

The great camera trap bloggers don't post their mistakes often.  They may make a few, but not many and have so many great shots that they just don't have the time to post misadventures. CTC is not quite there yet, so I present a misadventure.

Yes, that is a roadkill brush rabbit placed in front of the camera. I happened to have a plastic bag in the car on my way to camera trap when I saw the smashed little rabbit in the middle of the road. So of course, like a good Codger student, I pulled over and grabbed it, making sure no one was watching and jumped back into the car and headed on to the reserve.

This set is not necessarily a brain fart mistake, but the set has some obvious problems that are exacerbated in foggy, coastal Santa Cruz County, and made even worse when the camera is 100 feet from Monterey Bay.

A fogged up homebrew camera.  Woulda been, shoulda been, great shots.

I have tried silica packets but they don't seem to help all that much.

I was thinking Rain-X.  It might put a slight film on the glass, but has anyone tried putting Rain-X on the inside glass of their homebrew? It works pretty great on my windshield, water just flows right off of it.  I think I may give it a try on one of my homebrews. Any other thoughts on combating condensation?

Bad Aim

One of the benefits of the cheaper off-the-shelf trailcams like the Scoutguard is its quick trigger speed.  The major downside is that it does not have an LCD display. You have to plug in a remote control with a postage stamp LCD screen which works fine for aiming the camera as long as you remember to bring it with you.  Alas, I forgot it when I set up this set on the UCSC Upper Campus Reserve.  I placed the camera in a thicket of brush that had a little canopy with a game trail going through it.  This lead to a well hidden camera but a very short distance between the camera and the trail.  As you can see, even though I thought I had the camera low enough on the tree it was a bit still high.  However, I was barely able to get shots of animals no more than 18" from the camera crossing directly in front of it.  Homebrews may have missed these shots.  Curve was used as scent for this set.  I don't think I will forget the LCD remote next time and hopefully get critters in frame.  FAIL