The Lazy Willow

Since there's little that can follow that Wowcat, I won't even try.

Instead, we'll move back to the usual suspects - black bears and gray foxes.

But this time with tricks!

Well, not really. But, a little bit.

Down the crick and canyon from our Tehachapan glug, glug set, there's a willow that fell long ago, yet continued to grow. This lazy ole willow seems to have wanted some attention, because it chose the creek-side animal path to lie down across.

And, by the worn track in the grass, the critters are fine with it.

They just seem to howdy and hop over old willow.

So, we set a cam on the scene to see who the bold might be.



We also dabbed scent on the willow, in hopes the crossers might pause and climb for a sniff.

And, as mentioned - like many of our Tehachapi sets - the gray foxes and black bears were not camera shy, or even willow shy.

The grays in particular had no problem tip-toeing up the willow. Being a hooked-claw fox that can actually climb less lazy trees, that's not surprising though. But still terribly cute.













I'm glad we're seeing multiple, healthy-looking gray foxes at each set. They can be a bit of an indicator species for eco-system impacts/changes. Up in the Bay Area, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, they seem to be in decline as humans encroach, and coyotes kill and out-compete them. The eastern red fox also seems to be moving in on them in some regions of California.

Seeing these 2 curious bears at multiple sets is also great, but proving to be a bit tricky as they play with and move our cams, and once again get them water-spotty from their fun in the creek.

Chocolate was first to the scene for a whiff 'n sniff, but sibling Sable wasn't too far behind...











Note that the small, spring-fed drainage, where we caught our clockwork cougar, and met these mighty sibs, is about 2 miles by road and easy-travel path from this lazy willow.

So these 2 are definitely getting around. And, we're not done with them in this round of sets...

Btw - data points such as these can start to give a sense of local bear ranges, and later maybe even an estimate of the regional bear population.

Woohoo! Science!

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Meek and the Mighty
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Clockwork Cougar
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - posts of cam trapping in the Tehachapis

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